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INVESTIGATING

NATURAL HAZARDS HM

LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY

Edited by

Robert H. Claxton

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. PERIODICALS DEPT

Tdr^^^^ Library

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Volume XXV 1986

INVESTIGATING

NATURAL HAZARDS IN

LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY

Robert H. Claxton
Volume Editor

CONTENTS

Page
Foreword Robert H. Claxton iii

Preface Louisa S. Hoberman 1

-DISEASE-

The Matlazahuatl of 1737-8 in some Villages in

the Guadalajara Region Murdo J. MacLeod 7

Order and Progress for some Death and Disease
for Others: Living Conditions of Non- Whites
in Rio de Janeiro, 1890-1940 Sam Adamo 17

-EARTHQUAKES-

Temporal Patterns in Historic Major Earthquakes

in Chile James H. Shirley 31

A Master List of Historic (pre - 1840)
Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions in
Central America Lawrence H. Feldman 63

The 1970 Yungay Earthquake: Post-Disaster Change

in an Andean Province of Peru . Anthony Oliver-Smith 107

-WEATHER-

The Bolivian Disaster Surveillance

Data System Josephine Malilay, 131

Patrick Marnane, & William E. Bertrand

Weather-based Hazards in Colonial
Guatemala Robert H. Claxton 139

I

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FOREWORD

History is more than the record of people interacting
with other people. History also includes the impact of such
non-human factors as diet, disease, insects, the availability or
lack of mineral resources or arable soil and draught animals,
technology, topography, fire, and natural hazards like
weather, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. These factors
establish limits within which people function but the non-
human elements alone do not determine human behavior.
The study of the role these non-human elements play is
emerging as the specialty which Professor David Sweet (Uni-
versity of California, Santa Cruz) calls "Infra-History."

There is a certain irony in the fact that the United
States is one of the safest places in the world. Even so, most
case studies regarding the impact of natural hazards concern
the United States. Hazard impacts are usually considered in
isolation. Few people study hazard impacts in the contempo-
rary Third World where the risks are greater and the popula-
tions are often more concentrated. There are still fewer stud-
ies anywhere from any historical perspective.

Significant hazard impacts are not simply an aspect of
the distant past. Nicaragua provides recent examples. Re-
sentment against the manner in which the Somoza govern-
ment managed recovery from the 1972 Managua earthquake
contributed to its fall to the Sandinistas in 1979. Extensive
flooding in 1982 gave the revolutionary government addi-
tional reason to rely more heavily on the U.S.S.R. and its
allies for assistance. There were several natural disasters in
Latin America in 1985. Two earthquake and volcanic erup-
tion diverted the energies of Mexico and Colombia away
from the foundering Contadora peace initiative for Central
America.

Natural hazards become natural disasters when people
do not, or will not, understand how to cope with their envi-
ronment. This volume is a modest attempt to contribute to
that understanding. The documentation style in each essay
reflects the standard practice in the academic discipline
represented.

Ill

I wish to express appreciation to Shirley Tanner and
Beth Currey for their assistance in the preparation and dis-
tribution of Studies in the Social Sciences.

Robert H. Claxton,
Editor

IV

PREFACE

Three recent disasters in Latin America the Mexican
earthquakes of September 19th and 20th, the Puerto Rican mud-
slide of October 8th, and the Colombian volcanic eruption and
mudslide of November 13th, all occuring in the Fall of 1985
have once again called attention to the importance of natural
hazards to this region of the world. The North American press
has presented these disasters, so costly in human life and in dam-
age to buildings, farms, and businesses, as a cruel blow to coun-
tries or regions already struggling against a burden of foreign
debt, drug scandals, or severe unemployment. What the many ex-
cellent journalistic accounts of these tragedies often neglect to
mention is the fact that earthquakes, mud avalanches, and other
natural hazards, such as droughts, epidemics, floods, and hurri-
canes, have occurred repeatedly in Latin American history. In-
deed, one of the constants in the past of the Latin American na-
tions is the periodic occurrence of these devasting events.

The study of natural hazards is, therefore, the province of the
historian, as well as of the journalist, and the practitioners of
other present-oriented disciplines such as the geologist, the anthro-
pologist, and the epidemiologist. However, historians rarely choose
a disaster, or series of disasters, as the primary focus of their
scholarship. Rather, they treat them as background to other topics
or as an aggravating event. This volume of Studies in the Social
Sciences seeks to rectify the lack of historical perspective on natu-
ral hazards in Latin America by presenting several analyses that
focus on the hazards themselves and that offer data on their re-
peated occurence over long periods of time. In addition, two of the
essays offer models that may permit the prediction of hazards in
the future.

"The Matlazahuatl of 1737-8 in some villages in the Guada-
lajara Region" by Murdo MacLeod is a valuable study, because it
resurrects the history of a lesser known colonial Mexican epi-
demic, the matlazahuatl of 1737-8, and illustrates how our knowl-
edge of these events is influenced by subjective considerations.
Based on his analysis of the burial registers from several villages
in the Guadalajara region, MacLeod concludes that the
matlazahuatl of the 1730s was the most deadly epidemic of the

1

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986)

century in these towns but that it was not remembered as such,
partly because attitudes toward disease were different at that time
than during the far better known epidemic of the 1780s. In the
later period, when the government was seen as responsible for aid-
ing victims, relief measures were taken and their relative ineffl-
cacy heightened popular awareness of the devastation of the epi-
demic. In arguing for the need to study how contemporaries
themselves viewed epidemics, MacLeod suggests a new direction
for demographic history. However, in stressing that epidemics af-
fecting mainly Indians helped create a mestizo population in Mex-
ico, MacLeod follows in the tradition of the Berkeley school.

Sam Adamo's "Order and Progess for Some Death and
Disease for Others: Living Conditions of Nonwhites in Rio de
Janeiro, 1890-1940," enables us to compare the impact of disease
in a modern, urban setting to its effect in the colonial, rural set-
ting described by MacLeod. The number of similarities is signifi-
cant and points to the usefulness of focusing on disease itself as
the central subject of study. Although the degree of government
intervention in the living conditions of the poor, such as the goal
of providing adequate low cost housing, has been much greater in
the twentieth century, the failure of half-hearted state efforts was
common to both periods. Adamo has utilized an interesting vari-
ety of turn of the century reports to show that there was concern
about poor housing and nutrition but that special interests frus-
trated the implementation of the remedies devised. Another simi-
larity is the selective impact of disease. Just as Indians were pri-
marily affected by matlazahuatl in colonial Mexico, Afro-
Brazilians were the chief victims of the poor living conditions that
fostered tuberculosis and gastroenteritis in Republican Brazil. Al-
though the death rates due to these diseases declined for all socio-
racial groups in the twentieth century, the decline was less for
non-whites.

One reason that the importance of natural hazards to Latin
American history has often not been recognized is the lack of in-
formation on the disasters that have occurred from the colonial
period to the present. Jim Shirley's "Temporal Patterns in His-
toric Major Earthquakes in Chile," and Lawrence Feldman's "A
Master List of Historic (pre - 1840) Earthquakes and Volcanic
Eruptions in Central America," are, therefore, particularly wel-
come contributions to the literature, since they document the re-
currence of these events for 300 years or more. With the help of

C. Lomnitz's catalog of major historic earthquakes in Chile, Shir-
ley was able to identify more than 40, dating from 1570. With the
benefit of this temporal perspective, he then concluded that the
earthquakes' time of occurence could be correlated with the posi-
tion of the Moon and the Sun, provided the earthquakes were ana-
lyzed by grouping them according to Chile's four seismic regions.
Quakes are caused by stresses in the Earth's crust, and the gravi-
tational attractions of the Moon and Sun can produce these
stresses. Shirley also notes the conclusions of J. Kelleher, who be-
lieved that seismic activity migrated from north to south in Chile
in approximately 100-year cycles. Both conclusions demonstrate
that earthquakes occur in a pattern. They do not permit precise
prediction of the time or place of future earthquakes, but they do
establish regularities that may ultimately lead to accurate
predictions.

Lawrence Feldman's "Master List" provides a longer list of
earthquakes for Central America than does Shirley for Chile, be-
cause Shirley limited himself to major disturbances, that is,
quakes with magnitudes of at least 7.5. Feldman's essay, there-
fore, includes many small earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
which are significant because of the impact even small distur-
bances had on local economies. His thorough index is derived pri-
marily, though not exclusively, from the Archivo General de Cen-
tro-America and the Archivo General de Indias. Feldman has
been concerned to use primary eyewitness accounts and to avoid
the reliance of previous historians on colonial chronicles which are
basically secondary accounts. He has recognized that the Spanish
government's practice of granting tax relief and disaster funding
to affected regions is a prime source of first hand information. Be-
ginning with the volcanic eruption of 1505 in Santiago Atitlan,
Guatemala, Feldman's list covers over three centuries of archival
references to 1830. His essay can serve as a model for similar lists
for other regions.

"The 1970 Yungay Earthquake: Post-disaster Change in an
Andean Province of Peru" by Anthony Oliver-Smith is a case
study of a recent earthquake that raises significant questions
about the impact of disasters in the context of sociological studies
of change, such as the work of Allen Barton on the response of
different types of communities and of Raymond Firth on the dif-
ference between social organizational change and social structural
change. Thus, he provides a framework in addition to the history

of Latin America for the analysis of natural hazards. Another
contribution is to identify areas of Latin American society where
we might expect to observe disaster-induced change. In Yungay
Indian peasants and small town cholo and mestizo entrepreneurs
experienced upward mobility, due to the near destruction of the
traditional hacendado and professional elite by the earthquake
and rock slide. The barrio of Mitma, which had previously been
subordinate to the barrio of Huambo now acted more indepen-
dently. Oliver-Smith draws a contrast between these social organi-
zational changes in the experience of particular groups and the
persistence of the political and social structure in other respects.
Thus, Oliver-Smith concludes that while the earthquake hastened
the pace of social change and may have even more dramatic long
term effects, it did not revolutionize regional society by any
means. Oliver-Smith's thesis is persuasive and represents one his-
toriographical apporach to disasters: that by disrupting existing
arrangements, natural hazards provide an opportunity for positive
changes. Scholars familiar with disasters in earlier periods, how-
ever, more frequently take the approach that the disaster consti-
tuted a heavy drain on the resources of the region, and that far
from contributing to development, retarded it.

The two final essays in this volume deal with disasters caused
by meteorological variations, producing floods and drought. They
too reveal the contrast in approaches between those who study
contemporary disasters and those who focus on historical disas-
ters. "The Bolivian Disaster Surveillance Data System," by
Josephine Malilay, Patrick Marnane, and William Bertrand, de-
scribes a computer-based system developed to maximize relief to
communities striken by floods or drought by identifying the disas-
ter in its early stages. The project, sponsored initially by USAID,
was stimulated by the havoc wrought by the appearance of the El
Nino current in 1981-82. It seeks to provide an "early warning
system" for disasters underway rather than, as Shirley intended,
to predict the appearance of the disaster itself. The meticulously
designed information gathering plan shows the great progress that
has been made in understanding the effects of disasters on rural
Latin American communities. It also demonstrates a welcome
confidence that the damage caused by natural hazards can be re-
duced to some extent. But, as the authors conclude, even this well-
conceived project met the obstacles of community suspicion and
incomplete local data. Like Oliver-Smith, the authors view natural

hazards as a reality in Latin America which can be coped with to
some extent. Both essays also stress the impact of national pat-
terns which are beyond the control of the affected local
communities.

Robert Claxton's "Weather-Based Hazards in Colonial Gua-
temala" is a comprehensive historical overview of the impact of
droughts and floods in that region. By noting the types of archival
and non-documentary sources available, by presenting the
droughts and floods of colonial Guatemala in Tables I and II, and
by analyzing the relief measures and long term effects of these
hazards, Claxton combines most of the approaches utilized by the
other authors in the volume. The result is the first study to focus
exclusively on weather-related disasters over a 300 year period.
Claxton makes several interesting methodological contributions.
First, he distinguishes among climatological drought (normal dry
season), meteorological drought (abnormal dry season), and socio-
political drought (shortages due to hoarding of supplies or poor
planning). One task of the historian of climate is to relate the
three conditions; previously, historians have focused on the third.
Secondly, he points out that the governments of the nineteenth
and, it is implied, the twentieth centuries, had more resources at
their disposal to offer relief, so that the temporal context of the
disaster is important. Third, by contrasting the impacts of
droughts and floods, he lays a basis for a typology of disasters
and, ultimately, and appropriate relief strategy for each. Petitions
for tax exemptions, for example, an interesting aspect of colonial
disaster history, were more common after drought than after
flood, and, in general, drought apparently had a greater impact
than flood. Finally, like Oliver-Smith, Claxton refers to Foster,
Roth, and other scholars of comparative disaster to locate the
Guatemalan data. This volume, therefore, offers not only informa-
tion about many actual disasters but provides suggestions for fur-
ther research on this timely topic.

Louisa S. Hoberman

Assistant Professor
of History
George Mason
University

THE "MATLAZAHUATL" OF 1737-1738 IN
SOME VILLAGES IN THE GUADALAJARA

REGION

Murdo J. MacLeod**

European agrarian historians have made us familiar with the
term "subsistence crisis."1 Bad harvest brought on by drought,
flooding, late springs or early winters, blights, sudden freezes,
hailstorms or gales struck with seemingly cyclical regularity.
Large farmers, estate owners, wealthier merchants and city gov-
ernments could anticipate hard times by holding back and storing
foodstuffs in good years, by slaughtering off surplus livestock, or,
the most infamous response to hard times, by hoarding and re-
grating foodstuffs during the crisis itself and its aftermath. Peas-
ants, poor villagers, and the common folk in small towns usually
were unable to afford these solutions.

Pestilence of various kinds could act very much as an inde-
pendent agent, striking, as we shall see, against a background of
seemingly impropitious social and economic circumstances. More
usual, however, was the sequence whereby epidemics would take
advantage of rising prices, scarcity of staples, and the resultant
nutritional dificiencies and immunological weaknesses. The very
young, the old, and the very poor suffered most in many of these
pestilences, and population decline, even if sometimes very tempo-
rary, was the result, often most noticeable in the year following
the harvest damage or failure, because resistance was at its lowest
and malnutrition at its highest by then. Poor relief, rudimentary
in the large towns and cities, was almost non-existent in the
poorer rural areas, and many people resorted to flight, seeking
food and work in less affected areas, trying to avoid contagion but
often carrying it with them, and hoping to outdistance the omni-
present tax collectors, labor recruiters and other authorities,

** Direct correspondence to: Department of History, University of Florida, Gaines-
ville, Florida 32611.

1 The literature on these crises in Europe is large. For the moment, see B. H. Slicher
van Bath, The Agrarian History of Western Europe, A.D. 500-1850, Oliver Ordish trans.
(London, 1963); and Michael W. Flinn, The European Demographic System, 1500-1820
(Baltimore, 1981).

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986)

whose demands often continued in spite of hard times.2

Research on agrarian crises in Mexico was pioneered by En-
rique Florescano, who was able to demonstrate a close relationship
between droughts, blights, harvest failures and the price fluctua-
tions of the basic cereal, maize. Most notable, in Florescano's im-
portant survey, is the seeming inevitability and cyclically of these
agrarian crises. There were ten, one almost every decade, during
the eighteenth century in Mexico. These varied widely in severity,
of course, and from a central Mexican standpoint, and by popular
tradition, the ferocity, misery and price inflation brought by the
famine and epidemic of 1785-86, the notorious aho de hambre,
were the worst.3

Even more recent, although the volume of work is becoming
impressive, has been detailed research on Mexican epidemics.
Again, Florescano has been one of the pioneers, and has provided
scholars with a basic outline of these disasters. As is to be ex-
pected the relationship between some of these epidemics and the
preceding subsistence crisis is clear. Diseases such as measles and
smallpox, especially, seem to have been "piggyback" opportunists.
In a few cases, however, no necessary relationship has been found
between agrarian difficulties and epidemics, and, at least at this
stage in the research, examples have been found where one or the
other of these types of disaster surge through communities and
pass on, in seeming isolation.4

Within the general context of this work on Mexican
epidemics I have been studying the burial registers from several
villages in the Guadalajara region. These villages begin around
Lake Chapala and stretch in a narrow band northwards to an area
roughly half way between the cities of Guadalajara and

2 The measles epidemic of 1726-27 was related to a subsistence crisis. See Murdo J.
MacLeod, "The three Horsemen: Drought, Disease, Population and the Difficulties of
1726-1727 in the Guadalajara Region," SECOLAS Annals 14 (March 1983): 33-46. But
there is no inevitable relationship between dearth and pestilence. See the discussion on
these matters in D. A. Brading and Celia Wu, "Population Growth and Crisis: Leon, 1720-
1860." Journal of Latin American Studies 5 (May 1973): 27-29. Moreover, famines are
often problems of equity and distribution rather than a result of crop failures. See Amartya
Senn, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Corrected ed. (Ox-
ford, 1982).

3 Enrique Florescano, Precios del maiz y crisis agricolas en Mexico, (1708-1810)
(Mexico City, 1969), especially the graphs, pp. 113, 124 and 139. Sell also Enrique
Florescano, comp., Fuentes para la historia de la crisis agrlcola de 1785-1786, 2 vols.
(Mexico City, 1981).

4 Enrique Florescano and Elsa Malvido, comps., Ensayos sobre la historia de las
epidemias en Mexico, 2 vols. (Mexico City, 1982), and the materials in note 2 above.

Zacatecas. The climate around Lake Chapala and Guadalajara
resembles that of most of montane Mexico. There are few major
rivers, but the lakeside communities are less subject, for obvious
reasons, to the effects of drought. The temperate climate provides
one rainy season, June to mid-October, anxiously awaited and un-
certain, and a long dry season. Nearly everywhere, except where
there is irrigation in a few places on the lake, for example, there is
one growing season and one harvest per year. Generally speaking,
dessication increases as one moves north towards the semi-deserts
of Zacatecas, and the agriculture situation becomes more
precarious.6

There is a variety of problems which frustrate the researcher
working in these burial registers. Incomplete runs, obliterated
pages, difficulties in making data comparable, are common. Most
problematical is the variability in the data written down. Some
compulsive village priests entered a large array of interesting spe-
cifics in the register after each funeral, including ethnic category,
age, cause of death, and economic rank of funeral. Others insouci-
antly wrote a brief note after each funeral, or simply wrote up the
ones they could remember at the end of the month or thereabouts.
Some went to Guadalajara for long visits. A few fled their par-
ishes when crises such as epidemics began, thus leaving later re-
searcher without data at the specific times when they most needed
them. In short, the reliability of data varies widely, and macro
statistics should cause less suspicion than findings based on small
samples, on ones limited to one village, or on ones brief in the
time span covered.6

Specifically this paper casts a brief glance at a handful of
villages for which, so far, I have completed approximately one
century of offical burial statistics. My emphasis is upon the epi-
demic of 1737-38, recognized in Mexican historiography as very
servere, but one which has never approached the infamous reputa-
tion of the afio de hambre.7

5 Eric Van Young, Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth-Century Mexico: The Rural
Economy of the Guadalajara Region, 1675-1820 (Berkeley, 1981), pp. 14-15, and the
works mentioned in these pages.

8 Bishops passing by on pastoral visitas constantly chided the village clergy over their
negligence in the maintenance of parish registers. A typical example is the visita by the
Bishop of Guadalajara to the pueblo of Ajijic, Nov. 21, 1715, in Archivo de la Parroquia
de San Francisco de Asis de Jocotepec, Jalisco, Defunciones, Anos 1695-1765, Vol. II.
40v.-41.

7 I have been unable to find any research specifically devoted to this epidemic. Works
devoted to the afio de hambre are relatively numerous.

The pestilence of 1737-38 in the region under study began
late in 1737, the earliest record so far being from August 1737 at
Jocotepec at the eastern end of Lake Chapala. In the parish of
Chapala and Ixtlahuacan the first death noted as a result of the
epidemic took place the day after Christmas, 1737. From the
lakeside the disease spread quickly north, and perhaps east. In
fact, very tentatively and somewhat surprisingly given the cen-
tral Mexican origins of so many Mesoamerican pandamics the
epidemic seems to have spread from the south and east, that is
from Colima. For some of the villages to the north of Guadala-
jara, Colotan being an exception, the epidemic occurred entirely
within the year 1738. In a few villages in Zacatecas it lasted into
1739.8

Many villages curas spoke simply of "la epidemia," and a few
did not even mention it specifically, in spite of the line of corpses
which they had to bury daily. Others identified the disease as be-
ing that scourge of sixteenth-and-seventeenth-century Mexico,
matlazahuatl. After examining the scanty information on the
symptoms and progress of the disease, many scholars have decided
that matlazahuatl was exanthemic typhus. This diagnosis, while
fitting the evidence fairly well, and while certainly compatible
with the extraordinary mortality rates, presents some problems as
on considered the data from the Guadalajara region. The disease
began in most places at the height of the dry season, and waned,
in general, during the rainy season, as monthy burials in the fol-
lowing villages illustrate.9

Table 1
Burials by Month, 1738

Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
Chapala &
Ixtlahuacan 13 5 132 109 39 41 48 36 24 9 M 6

Colotlan 20 43 74 120 64 44 9 18 24 16 10 M
(M = Missing)

Another problem is the selectivity of the disease. Immunity to
typhus, a disease spread from the feces of body lice, in damp,

8 See the Libros de Entierros of the Parroquias of Jocotepec, Chapala and Ixtahuacran
(not to be confused with Ixtlahuacan del Rio), and Colotlan.

9 Archivo de la Parroquia de Chapala, Mexico, Defunciones, Vol. II, Entierros de
1735 a 1775, ff. 7v-f.29; Archivo de la Parroquia de San Luis en Colotlan, Jalisco, Diocesis
de Zacatecas, Defunciones, Vol. I, Aftos 1718-1760, ff. 74v.-124.

10

crowded conditions, is short lived, and as far as I know, shows no
hereditary strength. Yet people of the time, and the evidence sup-
ports them, considered matlazahuatl to be a disease confined al-
most entirely to Indians. "Agui comenzo la enfermedad de los in-
dios llamada vulgarm[en]te. Matlazaguat," wrote the village
priest of Chapala. In Ciquio, well to the north, a priest concluded
his entries for the sujeto village of Teponguazco by stating
"Murieron en d[ic]ho Pueblo de Teponaguaso 1,083 Indios, de
Matlazahuatl." (His arithmetic was slightly off.) In Zacatecas, in
the village of Tlaltenango (now "de Sanchez"), the priest, who
tried to give a cause of death whenever possible, noted 917 deaths
in 1738, and the correspondence between matlazahuatl and Indian
ethnic origin was almost total.10

There is also evidence of another kind that matlazahuatl was
almost exclusively a killer of Indians. The low-lying village of La
Barca, just west of Lake Chapala, had become mestizo and, above
all, mulatto in ethnic composition by the early eighteenth century.
Very few Indian burials were being recorded by then, and even
these decreased throughout the century. This non-Indian village
was affected very little by the matlazahuatl of 1737-38, and there
are no later references to this disease in the burial registers for the
village. On the other hand, an epidemic of unknown kind in 1778
(I counted 194 burials), and one of smallpox in 1780 ( I counted
132 burials), struck La Barca as hard as or harder than surround-
ing villages, and the ano de hambre affected the mulattoes there
by this time the village was almost completely mulatto accord-
ing to the official records with about the same severity as it did
other groups in other places in the region. Obviously it is risky to
generalize from one village's burial records, but that the
matlazahuatl of 1737-38 may have killed mainly Indians, and that
the ano de hambre may have killed all rural ethnic groups more or
less indiscriminately, could be a potentially significant problem
worthy of more investigation. Nor should such research necessa-
rily assume a biological or even immunological emphasis, although
such approaches seem to be promising. Although it seems unlikely
from present evidence, there may have been cultural, economic, or
medical differences of significance between Indian and all non-In-
dian communities which could help to explain such seemingly

10 See the above Chapala Libro de Entierros, f. 7; also Archivo de la Parroquia de
Cuquio, Jalisco, Diocesis de Guadalajara, Defunciones, ff. 67v.-74; Archivo de Tlaltenango,
Zacatecas, Defunciones, ff. 43v-90.

11

large disparities in mortality rates under the impact of one epi-
demic. This ethnic change via selective epidemics is an interesting
story in itself, but the point here is that deaths from matlazahuatl
gradually disappear in La Barca, at the same time as its Indian
population ." In short, if matlazahuatl was typhus, it showed a
characteristic virulence, but a capricious seasonality and an ethnic
selectivity which demand further enquiry.

We now turn to annual totals of burials, and compare the
approximate mortality, in villages where, so far, the data have al-
lowed me to make such comparisons, year by year, throughout the
eighteenth century. In the villages presented below, and, I suspect,
in almost of the villages of the region, the epidemic of 1737-39
was the largest and most deadly one of the eighteenth century.
The ano de hambre, 1786-87, occupies second place, and, in some
villages third place behind the smallpox epidemic of 1780.

Table 2
A Comparison of Two Epidemics and Surrounding Years

Village

1730 31 32 33 34 35 36

37

38

39 40

La Barca

13 10 71815 7 15

6

31

14 5

Chapala

17 29 19 14 26 38 M

32

462

32 11

(W. Ixtlahuacan)

Colotlan

9* 32 34 3143 52 35
Other Villages

56

442

25 8*

Tlaltenango

11*21* MMM M M

M

917

97 81

Cuquio

40 37 48 42 63 38 19*

38 1167 210* M

Cienaga de Mata

18 27 326421 13 15

29

175

92 48

Jocotepec

25 7* 6*28 33 M 26 178

M

11* 12

*Record is seriously incomplete

(M = Missing)

87

88

Village

1780 81 82 83 84 85 86

89 90

La Barca

132 43 37 23 37 100 142

38

19

1538

Chapala

312 51 55 7466 121 198

73

55

3156

(W. Ixtlahuacan)

Colotlan

209 57 60 80 90 252 157

86

31

50 48

(Sources: The Libros de Entierros of the above

villages.)

" Archivo de la Parroquia de La Barca, Estado de Jalisco, Defunciones. See the buri-
als by race in Vol. I, and Vol. II, 1769-1798, ffs. 103-1 19v., 124v.-135v., 176-190.

12

Even more noteworthy is that the general population of the
region was considerably lower, perhaps by one third, in the decade
of the 1730s than it was in the decade of the 1780s. Thus, not
only was the matlazahuatl of 1738 the most deadly epidemic of
the century in these villages, but if one compares it to the popula-
tion size of its time proportionately, it is far and away more
deadly than its more famous successor of the 1780s. In some ar-
eas, some of the sujetos around Cuquio, for example, whole Indian
village populations disappeared, never to return in any force. Add
to this the general impression one has that record keeping was
more careful in the 1780s, and that more priests abandoned their
charges in the 1730s, at least in the villages I have studied, and
the differences in the total number of deaths grows even larger.

Before one generalizes from these few villages to all of Mex-
ico or just to the whole Guadalajara region, it is well to note that
another study, based on a small sample of villages, indicated that
while the Guadalajara region suffered heavily mortality between
1784 and 1786, it was by no means as hard hit as parts of the
Bajio, central Mexico, or Chiapas.12 Moreoever, in at least one
village, Tonala, close to the city of Guadalajara, the burials for
1784-86 far exceeded those of 1737-38, probably because of an
influx of refugees from the starving countryside.13

In spite of these minor caveats, one is left with the task of
explaining the peculiar neglect of the matlazahuatl of 1737-38 in
the historical record, and the comparative importance of the ano
de hambre in these same writings. As soon as the matlazahuatl
had passed it was forgotten, at least by literate survivors, whereas
the crisis of 1784-86 became a haunting legend, and continues to
draw the attention of scholars to this day.14

Perhaps the suggested predilection of matlazahuatl for Indian
victims has something to do with it. As the most lowly and ig-
nored sector of the population, their tribulations may have passed
relatively unnoticed. Then too, there were few relief measures in
the 1730s. The great epidemic did provoke some people in Mexico

11 R. Spillman, "The Disaster Complex of 1785-86 in New Spain: Prologue to a Geo-
graphical Analysis," Paper, 75th Annual Meeting, Association of American Geographers,
Philadelphia, 1979, and the map based on it in Linda Greenow, Credit and Socioeconomic
Change in Colonial Mexico: Loans and Mortages in Guadalajara, 1720-1820, (Boulder,
Colorado, 1983), p. 175.

13 Greenow, Credit, p. 158.

14 Compare the treatment of the two epidemics in Van Young, Hacienda and Market
and also see the compilation by Florescano and Malvido in Ensayos.

13

to deplore this lack of relief facilities and Marquesado del Valle
officials promoted the establishment of hospitals, but around Gua-
dalajara, with the exception of a few Franciscan village hospitals,
seldom mentioned, and in which few people seem to have died, the
sick were left to their own devices, often abandoned even by the
fleeing fellow villagers.15 By the 1780s the situation had changed
somewhat. Guadalajara had its alhondiga, and a few of the larger
villaged seem to have had more effective, or at least occupied,
"hospitales" for the destitute. Given these efforts, which presuma-
bly denoted a higher level of public and offical sensitivity and con-
cern, the obvious inability to influence outcomes, and thus feelings
of helplessness, may have caused more distress over the
situation.16

The leading factor in this puzzle, however, may be the basic
socio-economic conditions of the 1730s and the 1780s. In the
1730s the region's population was still sparse. Recovery from the
demographic nadir of the seventeenth century had been slow and
there was little general pressure on the land. Nor was the
matlazahuatl a "piggy back" epidemic. It does not appear to have
been associated with any major dearth or agrarian crisis. Thus it
arose, terrible though it was, in apparent isolation from its sur-
rounding context, killing many, leaving whole villages abandoned,
but also leaving the grief stricken survivors relatively healthy and
well fed. In fact, the deaths may have relieved whatever pressure
on resources there was, and probably helped to better wages and
diet in some places.

By the 1780s the socio-economic context had changed. Espe-
cially aroung Lake Chapala there was considerable malthusian
pressure, perhaps even some elements of a crisis. The rural popu-
lation was much larger, even double what it had been half a cen-
tury earlier in a few places. The smallpox epidemic of 1780, which
killed mostly small children and infants, did not do much to re-
lieve the situation. To make matters worse, haciendas had en-
croached on many of the free ranges which had existed earlier in

18 Personal Communication from Prof. Cheryl E. Martin, Jan. 23, 1985, which cites
Archivo General de Mexico, Hospital de Jesus, legajo 344, expediente 33, May-July, 1737.

19 Van Young, Hacienda and Market discusses the alhondiga at some length. For
mentions of pueblo "hospitales," see Archivo. . .de la Barca, Vol. II, f. 133; Archivo
de. . .Colotlan, Vol. II, f. 112. There is brief discussion of the Franciscan origins, cofradia
sponsorship, and history of these Jalisco village hospitals in, John K. Chance and William
B. Taylor, "Cofradias and cargos: An historical perspective on the Mesoamerican civil-
religious hierarchy," American Ethnologist. 12 (1985): 9-10.

14

the century, and thus prevented the expansion of village agricul-
ture. Worse still, the epidemics of 1784-86 were related to a pro-
longed subsistence crisis.17 The survivors had suffered years of
poor harvests, malnutrition and other hardships, and would re-
member the ano de hambre in very personal ways.

As far as the ethnic structure of many villages around Gua-
dalajara was concerned the matlazahuatl of the 1730s may have
been of great importance, setting the area on the road to a mes-
tizo, hispanized future rather than a more Indian one. As far as
the question of historical memory is concerned, however, it was an
awful, death-dealing accident, not part of a general social and ec-
onomic crisis of long duration; and as such, the living tried to for-
get and continued with their lives, something the struggling, ill-fed
survivors of the comparatively milder ano de hambre were quite
unable to do.

In short, the statistics on morbidity and mortality which we
glean from disasters tell us only part of the story. Of more impor-
tance than straightforward study of the data is the social and eco-
nomic context surrounding the disaster, for only by an apprecia-
tion of this context can we tell, approximately, what the event
meant to people of the time, and thus what kind of impressionistic
historical record these unhappy survivors will leave to their
descendants.

17 Van Young, Haciendas and Market, pp. 94-103.

15

ORDER AND PROGRESS FOR

SOME DEATH AND DISEASE FOR OTHERS:

LIVING CONDITIONS OF NONWHITES IN

RIO DE JANEIRO, 1890-1940

Sam Adamo**

INTRODUCTION

The paper examines the living conditions of the poor in Rio
de Janeiro at the turn of the twentieth century. The substandard
housing, inferior nutrition, and presence of innumerable epidemic
and contagious diseases formed a debilitating and often deadly
troika that decimated the city's lower classes. Mortality from the
conditions and diseases prevalent in the city were not evenly dis-
tributed between the groups inhabiting the city in the 1890-1940
period. Blacks and mulattoes were disproportionately represented
among the poor and the death rates from "diseases of poverty"
reflect the inferior status of nonwhites in the city. The following
presentation describes the relationship between inferior housing,
poor nutrition and disease and how they worked together to the
detriment of Afro-Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro.

HOUSING

The favelas dotting the hillside of modern Rio de Janeiro are
a consequence of a problem that has haunted government officials
since the nineteenth century. Sustained natural increase and mi-
gration led to a great demand for housing. Government officials
experimented with various schemes to provide low cost housing for
the lower classes between 1890 and 1940. Most of the projects
failed due to insufficient funds, poor planning, long distances from
work, and neglect. The breakdown of low cost housing programs
and half-hearted attempts to establish and enforce rent controls
gave landlords the power to charge outrageously high rents for
cramped, overcrowded, and unsanitary quarters.

The middle and upper classes lived in single family dwellings

** Direct correspondence to: The Latin American Institute, The University of New
Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131.

17

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 25 ( 1 986)

while the poor were forced to live in substandard communal or
favela housing. The corticos and estalagens were cheap structures
designed to earn quick profits for their proprietors. These build-
ings resembled the tenements built in urban centers of the United
States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mater-
ials for construction differed little: the main buildings were gener-
ally made of unseasoned wood that rapidly developed large cracks
and gaps as the wood dried. These openings exposed the super-
structure to rain and humidity which accelerated deterioration.
Termites compounded the effects of environmental decay, further
shortening the life span of the fragile structures.1

Most of the small apartments or casinhas were assembled
along an extended corridor with a central patio and only one exit
to the street. The more spacious quarters had a small living room,
a kitchen, and one or two small bedrooms. The majority of the
corticos and estalagens were rooms with one window which were
described as "sepulchers" since they restricted admission of fresh
air and light.2 Most apartments were so small that Dr. Agostinho
Jose de Souza, a health specialist, recommended legislation
prohibiting construction of communal dwellings unless the rooms
were at least three to four meters square.3 The small cubicles in
the corticos housed from six to ten persons, while larger dwellings
designed for ten to twelve would accommodate forty to fifty
people.4

Residents shared a common water tank or fountain and la-
trines, so hygiene was difficult, if not impossible to maintain.
Crowded conditions accentuated the inadequate sewerage service
which was frequently interrupted, sometimes for days. The occu-
pants also shared their limited space with an assortment of ani-
mals (poultry, pigs, and even horses) contained in make-shift
stalls in the patios of the buildings. The agglomeration of humans
and animals in cramped quarters without proper ventilation,
water, or sewerage made the corticos and estalagens breeding
grounds of infections and contagious diseases.6

1 Conselho Superior de Saude Publica, Os Meios de Melhorar as Condicbes das
Habitacbes Destinadas as Classes Pobres (Rio de Janeiro, 1886), p. 3.

2 Conselho Superior, Habitacbes as Classes Pobres, p. 11.

3 Ibid., p. 7.

4 Gazeta de Noticias, 17 February 1917, p. 1; Antonio Pedro Pimentel, Terceira
Delegacia de Saude-Relatbrio Annual Apresentado ao Exm. Sr. Dr. Oswaldo Goncalves
Cruz, 2 Vols., (Rio de Janeiro: Relatorio da Ministerio da Justica, 1907), II: 5.

8 Conselho Superior, Habitacbes as Classes Pobres, pp. 22-25; Antonio Martins de

18

The impoverished who were unable to afford the exorbitant
rents of the corticos, estalagens, or hostels lived in the city's infa-
mous favelas. Favelas were squatter settlements established on
hills located in the center of the city. They provided cheap, afford-
able housing with ready access to the work places located in the
inner city. A small house on the Morro do Santo Antonio could be
erected for as little as forty to sixty mil reis while the average rent
for an apartment in a collective housing unit was forty to eighty
mil reis per month.6

The inexpensive favela housing has serious liabilities that off-
set the monetary savings that accrued to residents of these neigh-
borhoods. Old zinc plates, flattened kerosene cans, and discarded
lumber were the primary construction materials. Most houses
were one-room affairs less than two meters in height. The make-
shift methods of construction meant homes were stifling in the
summer and cold in the winter. Furniture was rudimentary at
best, often constructed from discarded materials found in the
streets. Limited space and danger from fire meant kitchens, usu-
ally no more than a collection of old pots and pans, were located
outside. Families commonly slept together, so the number of per-
son per house ranged from two to as many as ten.

A distinguishing characteristic of the favelas was the absence
of piped sewerage and water. Most residents, like those on the
Morro do Santo Antonio, had to carry water to their homes. Some
lucky settlements had piped water, but they were the exception
rather than the rule.7 The unplanned neighborhoods and streets,
which were little more than dirt footpaths, complicated efforts to
improve sanitation. The frequent rains turned the streets into
quagmires and homes were in constant danger from mudslides be-
cause they had no foundations.8

Azevedo Pimental, Estudo de Hygiene no Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1890), pp. 184-
86.

6 Mil reis were Brazil's old monetary standard which was superseded by the cruzeiro
in 1942. Joao do Rio, "A Cidade do Morro de Santo Antonio," Gazeta de Notictas, 5
November 1908, p. 1; Victorino Oliverira, "Babylonias do Rio a Estalagem," 23 August
1907, p. 1.

7 Contemporaries, for example, described the fountain on the Morro da Providencia as
"primitive," only capable of furnishing a "thin stream" of water. Residents had to wait in
long lines for their daily water supply or go to a public fountain. Gazeta de Noticias, 25
July 1914, p. 1.

8 Everado Backheuser, Habitacoes Populares (Rio de Janeiro, 1906), p. Ill; Jose
Antonio, "Alta da Miseria," Gazeta de Noticias, 1 1 August 1907, p. 4; 15 May 1915, p. 1.
Conditions in favelas improved and these reforms are noted in the following works even
though the authors continue to descirbe living conditions that are horrid when judged by

19

NUTRITION

Poor nutrition was another cause of high mortality, particu-
larly among nonwhites. The lower classes lacked adequate nutri-
tional knowledge to select proper diets, and their low incomes se-
verely restricted purchases of foods rich in proteins, minerals,
vitamins, and fats. Unbalanced diets coupled with low caloric in-
take made good health difficult, if not impossible, to maintain.
The diseases endemic to the city intensified the effects of poor nu-
trition and created a vicious cycle of malnutrition and illness that
frequently proved fatal. Before and after the abolition of slavery
in 1888, low socioeconomic status with little opportunity for up-
ward mobility locked most nonwhites into the vicious cycle which
debilitated the living as well as future generations.

Contemporaries unanimously condemned the dietary habits
of the poor. According to an 1860s study, breakfast was light,
consisting of coffee or tea with some bread. Lunch was a much
heartier meal, at which time small portions of salted or dried beef
were consumed along with beans, manioc flour, bread, and fruit
(usually oranges or bananas). Dinner was similar to lunch but va-
ried with the addition of soup, vegetables, and more fruit. Fresh
meat was a luxury item that rarely appeared on the tables of Rio's
working poor who reserved its consumption for Sundays, holidays,
or special occasions. Other sources of meat protein available to the
lower classes were codfish and sardines, but expenditures on fish
products were rare. Beans were typically cooked with a variety of
vegatables that included potatoes, yams, sweet cassava, squash,
cabbage, turnips, and okra. The most popular beverages were cof-
fee, tea, chocolate, and alcohol. The absence of refrigeration and
transportation facilities precluded the consumption of fresh milk
for most residents of the city.9

Nutrition was worse for slaves and freedmen than for other
members of the lower classes. Breakfast was a simple affair of
coffee and bread, while lunch and dinner were a combination of
beans, manioc flour, and an occasional piece of salted beef or fish.
Nonwhites preferred dried meat and fish over the same foods

modern standards: Maria Hortencia do Nascimento Silva, Impressbes de Uma Assistente
Sobre o Trabalho na Favela (Rio de Janeiro, 1942); Departmento de Geografia e Estatis-
tica, Censo das Favelas, Aspectos Gerais (Rio de Janeiro; 1949); Carlos Calderaro, Fave-
las, e Favelados do Distrito Federal (Rio de Janeiro, 1957).

B Antonio Correa de Sousa Costa, Alimentacao que Vsa a Classe Pobre do Rio de
Janeiro e sua influencia Sobre a Mesma Classe (Rio de Janeiro, 1865), pp. 33-35; Pi-
mental, Estudo de Hygiene, pp. 241-43, 245-46.

20

fresh. Many also had to secure their own fresh fruits and vegeta-
bles. Free blacks and mulattoes employed as masons, carpenters,
stevedores, or in other occupations outside of the household had to
buy their own food. Consequently, their diets were frequently
worse than the slaves in the city. Haphazard eating habits charac-
terized the diet of free blacks and mulattoes.10

There were few scientific studies of diet and nutrition in Rio
in the 1890-1940 period under scrutiny. Conditions gradually im-
proved, but severe nutritional imbalances were evident in the diet
of Rio's poor as late as the 1960s. A 1961-62 study of dietary
habits in Rio discovered continued inadequacies that were again
correlated with socioeconomic status. The average per capita con-
sumption of meat and milk was seven and fifteen times lower for
those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder than those in the
middle and upper classes.11

Ignorance of proper diet contributed to the malnutrition that
plagued Rio's lower classes, but the high cost of food over-rode
poor nutritional habits as a cause of the poor health of the disad-
vantaged. Descriptions from newspapers and government officials
indicated all basic food prices were unusually high in the period
under scrutiny.12 In 1890 government officials reported the city
was totally dependent upon Minas Gerais for its stock of fresh
meat. Any interruption in the supply would result in an immediate
shortage. The report's release was accompanied by news of a
price-fixing plot between Cesario Alvim, the interior minister, and
the Companhia Pastoril, the business enterprise responsible for the
shipment of cattle to the local market. The interior minister
granted the company a monopoly to facilitate transportation of
cattle and to protect the beef industry in Minas. Rising meat

10 Costa, Alimentacao, pp. 35-37. For greater details on insufficient diets of slaves
consult Alvaro de Faria, "Alimentacao e Estado Nutricional do Escravo no Brasil," Es-
tudos Afro-Brasileiros, vol. 1 (Rio de Janeiro, 1935), pp. 199-213.

11 Jacques M. May and Donna L. McClellan, The Ecology of Malnutrition in Eastern
South America, Studies in Medical Geography, vol. 13 (New York: Hefner Press, 1974),
pp. 299, 303-04.

12 Consult the following for typical reports pertaining to high food prices in Rio.
Policia Administrativa, Boletim, Outubro, Novembro, e Dezembro de 1890 (Rio de
Janeiro, 1890), p. 11; Aloar Prata Soares, Mensagem do Prefeito do Distrito Federal Lida
na Sessao do Conselho Municipal, I de Junho de 1923 (Rio de Janeiro, 1923), p. 11;
Diretoria Geral Policia Administrativa, Archivo, e Estatistica, Boletim da Intendencia Mu-
nicipal Abril a Junho, 1906 (Rio de Janeiro, 1906), Gazeta de Noticias, 29 January 1890,
p. 1; 2 February 1890, p. 6; 28 October 1899, p. 1; 6 July 1901, p. 1; 9 February 1920, p.
1; A Lucta, 20 March 1915, p. 1; 8 March 1915, p. 1; A Noticia, 24-25 January 1917, p. 3;
Jornal do Brasil, 2 June 1920, p. 6.

21

prices in Rio were allegedly the consequence of a drought that
decimated herds in the state. A subsequent investigation revealed
the company was fixing beef prices by controlling the number of
cattle reaching Rio's market. The drought was used as a ruse to
justify price increases in the city. Importation of cheap foreign
beef alleviated the meat shortage and the conspiracy of the Com-
panhia Pastoril backfired, as its sale of beef in the city
plummetted.13

Abuse of power like that recounted above was not unusual
nor was it limited to one commodity. Thirty years later the Jour-
nal do Brasil called milk producers "monopolists of commerce"
who "extorted" money from the poor, making it impossible for
them to purchase milk necessary for their families.14 City fathers
were aware of the abuses but were hamstrung by laws prohibiting
them from immediately punishing offending merchants.15 Prices
were so high that working class families spent 50 to 75 percent of
their total wages on food.16 Popular outcries for regulation of food
prices went unheeded, leaving the poor at the mercy of local
merchants.17

Aside from price, food quality was marginal. Only the middle
and upper classes could afford the most expensive domestic and
imported foods. Meat, regarded as a necessity by Brazilians of the
era, regularly entered the market in such a pitiful state that it was
often dangerous for consumption. All aspects of meat preparation,
preservation, and shipment were unsatisfactory. A local newspaper
claimed sanitation at the Island of Sapucala, the city's garbage
dump, was superior to that of the city's slaughterhouses.18 Meat
was cut on soiled wood blocks, wrapped in newspaper, and then
shipped without refrigeration to the markets in Rio. Poorly paid
employees had little incentive to maintain sanitary conditions pre-

13 There was no mention of disciplinary action undertaken against the interior minister
or the Companhia Pastoril. Policia Adminstrativa, Boletim, Outubro, Novembro, e
Dezembro de 1890 (Rio de Janeiro 1890), p. 11; Gazeta de Tarde, 28 October 1890, p. 1;
10 November 1890, p. 1.

" Jornal do Brasil, 2 June 1920, p. 6; 4 June 1920, p. 7. The Gazeta de Noticias, 7
February 1915, p. 6, reported price fixing by vendors of fresh fruits and vegatables in the
city.

16 Soares, Mensagem, 1 de Junho de 1925, p. 18.

16 Joao de Barros Barreto, Jose de Castro, and Almir Castro, "Inquerito Sobre Con-
dicSes de Alimentacao Popular no Distrito Federal," Arquivos de Hygiene, 2 (1930), p.
375.

17 Gazeta de Noticias, 1 February 1915, p. 6; "O Problema da Alimentacao," Brazil
Moderno, 4:90 (14 July 1917), p. 1.

18 Gazeta de Noticias, 15 November 1919, p. 1.

22

scribed by law, nor did public health authorities do much to en-
force them. Tubercular, cancerous, carbuncular, and rotten meats
were regularly sold in markets throughout the city.19 The sale of
tainted meat exemplified conditions widespread in the food
processing industry. Purchases of milk, meats, fresh fruits, and
vegetables often depended on price and distance from the market
as late as the 1930s.20 The absence of refrigeration and preserva-
tion techniques made fresh foods difficult to obtain for many of
the city's residents. Proper nutrition was a luxury which only the
middle and upper classes could afford. The inferior socioeconomic
status of nonwhites restricted their diet which in turn subjected
them to a variety of nonlethal but debilitating diseases like scurvy,
rickets, ophthalmia, xerophagia (eating dry or desiccated food),
and hemeralopia (day blindness) as a consequence of poor nutri-
tion.21 The regime of most blacks and mulattoes seriously affected
the newborn, who entered the world with nutritional deficiencies
that decreased chances for survival.

EPIDEMIC AND CONTAGIOUS DISEASE

The last section of the paper will examine mortality from epi-
demic and contagious diseases and then concentrate on two mala-
dies that were particularly lethal to residents of the city. Tubercu-
losis and gastroenteritis have been selected because they
underscore the vicious circle of substandard housing and improper
diet which resulted in permanent disability and death for non-
whites in the city. Infectious and parasitic diseases were responsi-
ble for most of the mortality in Rio. This category includes chol-
era, typhoid, tuberculosis, diptheria, smallpox, measles, yellow fe-
ver, malaria, and venereal diseases. Improved sanitation
eradicated malaria and yellow fever, yet it was powerless against
the city's major killer, tuberculosis. Deaths from all infectious and
contagious diseases in 1904 were 935 per 100,000 for whites,
1,133 for mulattoes, and 1,245 for blacks. Whites experienced the
greatest mortality rate decline: their death rates fell to 594 per
100,000 by 1926.22 Decreases for nonwhites were not as great;

19 Gazeta de Noticias, 23 January 1890, p. 1; 27 January 1890, p. 1; 1 1 April 1890, p.
1; 6 July 1901, p. 1; 15 November 1919, p. 1; 4 February 1920, p. 2. A Lucta, 20 March
1915, p. 1.

20 Barreto, Casto, and Castro, "Alimentacao Popular," pp. 391-396.

21 Faria, "Alimentacao e Estado Nutritional," pp. 206-11.

22 All disease specific mortality rates were calculated in deaths per 100,000 persons.

23

mulatto and black deaths declined only to 968 and 913 per
100,000, respectively. White mortality therefore declined 36 per-
cent versus 1 5 and 27 percent for mulattoes and blacks. The same
trends emerge when mortality rates are examined by sex. Non-
white males and females both had much higher death rates than
their white counterparts.

Hard work, overcrowding, poor sanitation, and malnutrition
typified life for most nonwhites and it was these conditions which
provided tuberculosis bacteria an ideal environment for growth.
The poor socioeconomic conditions of these people made tubercu-
losis the deadliest killer in the city. Public health and government
officials long identified that disorder as an affliction of the "less
favored classes."23 The Brazilian League Against Tuberculosis
also recognized that blacks and mulattoes were more likely to con-
tract the affliction than whites.24 The League's observations were
by no means unprecedented as similar reports from the nineteenth
century also indicated that slaves were highly susceptible to the
disease.26

23 Policia Administrativa, Boletim de Indendencia Municipal, Julho a Setembro, 1902
(Rio de Janeiro, 1902), p. 91; Joaquim Xavier da Silveira Junior, Relatbrio do Prefeito do
Distrito Federal, 5 de Setembro de 1902 (Rio de Janeiro, 1902), p. 19.

24 Liga Brasileiro Contra Tuberculose, Relatbrio da Liga Brasileiro Contra
Tuberculose Sobre a Gerencia de 1910 (Rio de Janerio, 1911), pp. 35-36. The League
estimated differential mortality from tuberculosis was 2.8 per 1,000 for whites and 9.1 per
1,000 for blacks and mulattoes.

28 Mary C. Karash, "Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850" (Ph.D. Dissertation,
The University of Wisconsin, 1972), pp. 210-21 1; Blacks in the United States and in South
Africa are noted for their susceptibility to tuberculosis. Julian Herman Lewis, The Biology
of the Negro (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), pp. 101-01; Edward E. Mays,
"Pulmonary Diseases" In The Textbook of Black Related Disease, edited by Richard Al-
len Williams (New York, 1975), pp. 417-18. Kenneth F. Kiple and Virginia H. King, An-
other Dimension to the Black Diaspora: Diet, Disease and Racism (Cambridge, 1981), p.
146; Jacques M. May, The Ecology of Human Disease, Studies in Medical Geography,
vol. 1 (New York: MD Publications, 1958), p. Ill; Ida Freiman and Jacob Geefhuysen,
"Tuberculosis in Black Children," South African Medical Journal, 49:39 (13 September
1975), p. 1591.

24

Table 1

DEATHS FROM INFECTIOUS AND PARASITIC DISEASE
BY RACE AND SEX

Deaths per 100,000 persons

Year White Mulatto Black

1904 934.6 1,132.5 1,244.5

1910 589.5 634.3 654.7

1915 579.2 818.7 905.0

1919 633.2 863.5 758.7

1924 491.2 709.9 665.4

1926 594.0 967.8 913.0

Males

1904 971.5 1,288.0 1,360.0

1910 610.4 652.5 712.8

1915 630.6 854.6 969.9

1919 690.4 892.8 816.0

1924 552.6 787.7 775.6

1926 655.3 1,052.7 1,067.9

Females

1904 876.6 1,006.9 1,041.8

1910 567.7 639.0 562.3

1915 527.2 810.3 823.3

1919 584.9 860.1 705.2

1924 433.4 659.0 575.1

1926 538.7 908.3 786.6

Source: Directoria Geral De Saude, Boletim Mensal de Estatis-
tica Demografo-Sanitaria da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de
Janeiro: Directoria Geral de Saude Publica), no. 1-12, 1904, 1910,
1915, 1919, 1924, 1926.

Tuberculosis was more lethal to blacks and mulattoes than to
whites in Rio de Janeiro. The white mortality rate in 1904 was
322 in contrast to 394 and 498 for mulattoes and blacks, respec-
tively. Mortality from the disease rose significanly for all races
during the hardships imposed during World War I and the de-
pression. White death rates rose by 16 percent while those for mu-
lattoes and blacks increased by 29 and 24 percent. Death rates
declined as conditions improved in the 1920s to a low of 264 for
whites, 443 for mulattoes, and 436 for blacks. The mortality de-
cline was not sustained in the 1930s. The increasing death rates

25

were probably a consequence of deteriorating economic conditions
that were particularly difficult for nonwhites. Tuberculosis death
rates in 1938 rose to 343 for whites, 542 for mulattoes, and 520
for blacks. Mortality from tuberculosis paralleled economic up-
turns and downturns, confirming the disease's relationship to envi-
ronmental conditions.

Table 2
DEATHS FROM TUBERCULOSIS BY RACE

Deaths per 100,000 persons
Year White Mulatto Black

1904

322.1

394.1

497.5

1910

382.1

430.0

506.2

1915

360.3

554.4

650.1

1919

347.3

482.3

504.2

1924

303.1

472.2

473.6

1926

264.2

442.5

435.5

1936*

263.1

405.0

347.4

1937*

287.6

445.1

450.8

1938*

343.4

542.2

520.3

Source: Directoria Geral de Saude, Boletim Mensal de Estatlstica
Demografo-Sanitaria da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, (Rio de
Janeiro: Directoria Geral de Saude Publica), no. 1-12, 1904, 1910,
1915, 1919, 1924, 1926.

*Jose Paranchos Fontentelli, A Saude Publico no Rio de
Janeiro, Distrito Federal 1937 & 1938 (Rio de Janeiro: Servico
de Saude Publica, 1939), pp. 86-91.

The highest death rates for tuberculosis occurred in the city's
lower class areas. Middle-and-upper-class neighborhoods such as
Botafogo, Copacabana, and Tijuca had the lowest death rates
from the disorder while the poorest areas of the city (Sao Cris-
tovao, Engenho Velho, Engenho Novo, Piedade, and Madureira)
had the highest mortality rates.26 The death rates from tuberculo-
sis are indicative of the continuing poverty in which Rio's non-
white population lived between 1890 and 1940.

28 Jose Parancos Fontenelli, A Saude Publica no Rio de Janeiro, Distrito Federal,
1937 e 1938 (Rio de Janeiro: Servico de Saude Publica, 1939), pp. 171-72.

26

DEATHS FROM NUTRITIONAL DISORDERS

Nutritional diseases were not a major cause of death in Rio
de Janeiro, yet mortality from non-lethal afflictions like gas-
troenteritis, measles, whooping cough, and the helminthic infec-
tions suggest malnutrition was an important factor contributing to
elevated mortality rates. The analysis of deaths related to defi-
ciency diseases is complicated by the public health services' lim-
ited acknowledgment of vitamin deficiencies as the only form of
death related to malnutrition. Attacks of diarrhea in Brazil fre-
quently precipitate severe states of malnutrition that end in death,
but diarrhea or enteritis rather than malnutrition were listed as
the official cause of death. Similarly, deaths from protein calorie
malnutrition or marasmus were frequently ascribed to other dis-
eases because there was no classification for malnutrition outside
of vitamin deficiency disorders.27

Poor nutrition has residual effects on the survivors and their
offspring.28 Gastroenteritis was endemic to Rio and it was a major
cause of nonwhite infant mortality. Recent studies of nutrition
showed antibiotics and immunizations played a much smaller role
in the decline of infant mortality in less developed countries than
originally surmised. Improved nutrition was a much stronger force
in reducing infant mortality than drugs. This was probably the
case for measles and gastroenteritis which were endemic to Rio
and major causes of nonwhite infant mortality.29 Poor diet can
initiate alterations in microbial flora (which play a secondary role
in resistance to contagions) and reduce the body's capacity to fight
infection.30 The negative aspects of malnutrition upon health are

27 Derrick B. Jelliffe, Infant Nutrition in the Subtropics and the Tropics, 2nd ed.
(Geneva: World Health Organization, 1968), p. 120.

28 Malnutrition reduces the capacity of the host to resist infection, particularly if the
contagions are bacteria, rickettsia, intestinal protozoa, or intestinal helminths, all of which
are endemic to Rio. Deleterious side effects of malnutrition upon resistance to infection
include reduced capacity of the host to form antibodies, decreased antibody activity, inter-
ference with the production of nonspecific protective substances, less immunity to bacterial
toxins, alterations in tissue integrity, diminished inflammatory response, and alterations in
wound healing and collagen formation, changes in intestinal flora, and variation in endo-
crine Nevin S. Scrimshaw, Carl E. Taylor, and John E. Gordon, Interactions of Nutrition
and Infection (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1968), pp. 12-13.

29 D. C. Morley, "Nutrition and Infectious Disease." In Disease and Urbanization.
Symposia for the Study of Human Biology, vol. 20, edited by E. J. Clegg and J. P. Garlick
(London, 1980), pp. 39-40.

30 Less definite protective substances like the skin, mucous membrane, lysozmes in
tears, sweat, peritoneal fluid, and euglobulin properdin, and inteferon are all restricted in
the ability to ward off infection by malnutrition. Scrimschaw, Taylor, and Gordon, Nutri-
tion and Infection, pp. 263-64.

27

compounded by infection's detrimental effects upon the host's nu-
tritional status. Infections trigger physiologic and anatomic
changes that hasten debilitation of an already malnourished host.
Diseases of the digestive tract were an important cause of death in
Rio. Intestinal obstructions, peritonitis, chronic liver disease, cir-
rhosis, cholelithiasis (calculi in the liver or in the bile duct), and
disorders of the pancreas claimed many lives in the city. The com-
bined death rates from the above diseases do not, however, equal
mortality caused by gastroenteritis and colitis. Mulattoes regis-
tered the highest death rates from enteritis and colitis from 1915
to 1926. Mortality ranged from a low of 190 per 100,000 in 1904
to a high of 467 per 100,000 in 1919. They were followed by
whites with intermediate levels of mortality (a low of 268 in 1904
and a high of 385 in 1919). Surprisingly, blacks had the lowest
level of mortality from the disorders. The low black death rate
may be related to different dietary and weaning practice. Karasch
found bondsmen in Rio often put together more nutritious meals
than other Brazilians and they breast fed their children until the
age of 2 or 3.31 The low death rates of blacks may be related to
survivals of these practices in Rio. The high death rates from en-
teritis suggest the kwashiorkor and marasmus were sidespread
problems affecting all racial groups in the city. Deaths from these
diseases and those from nutritional deficiencies indicate malnutri-
tion was an acute problem, especially for mulattoes in the city.

31 Karasch, pp. 174, 179-80.

28

Table 3
DEATHS FROM ALL DIGESTIVE DISORDERS BY RACE

Deaths per 100,000 persons

Year

White

Mulatto

Black

1904

379.7

262.0

188.2

1910

378.0

330.7

211.1

1915

432.6

427.0

284.0

1919

461.4

539.0

332.9

1924

366.9

502.4

361.7

1926

332.9

422.9

279.2

DEATHS FROM ENTERITIS AND COLITIS

1904

268.4

189.9

108.2

1910

331.9

283.8

163.4

1915

357.4

362.8

215.9

1919

385.2

466.8

271.0

1924

307.6

451.2

306.4

1926

276.9

378.5

230.6

Source: Directoria Geral de Saude, Boletim Mensal de Estatistica
Demografo - Sanitaria da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de
Janeiro: Directoria Geral de Saude Publica), no. 1-12, 1904, 1910,
1915, 1919, 1924, 1926.

CONCLUSION

Housing, nutrition and disease were intimately linked to ex-
cessive black and mulatto mortality. Rio's tropical climate pro-
vided an ideal environment for infectious and parasitic disorders.
Substandard housing, poor to nonexistent piped water, and sewer-
age facilitated the dissemination of epidemic diseases by providing
breeding grounds necessary for the survival of the microorga-
nisms. The poor nutrition of most blacks and mulattoes weakened
natural defenses, making them ideal hosts for contagions. Recov-
ery was difficult, if not impossible, in the ongoing cycle of malnu-
trition and infection. The disastrous consequences of environmen-
tal and nutritional factors are reflected in mortality from diseases
to which nonwhites have genetic resistance. Death rates from ma-
laria show blacks and mulattoes died in greater numbers than
whites, even though the sickle cell trait and the G6PD deficiency
gave the former extra defenses. The overworked and poorly fed
nonwhites were unable to engage defensive mechanisms without

29

necessary stores of proteins, vitamins, fats, and minerals. Deaths
from a normally inconsequential childhood disease such as mea-
sles underscore the precariousness of nonwhite nutritional status.
The absolute reduction in the death rates for nonwhites were
impressive, the the decline was not proportional to that of whites
in the city. The gap beween white and nonwhite mortality in-
creased with the passage of time and the death rates show that
blacks and mulattoes remained on the periphery of society for
more than fifty years after slavery's demise. Abolition freed the
slaves, but it did not improve their socioeconomic status.

30

TEMPORAL PATTERNS IN HISTORIC
MAJOR EARTHQUAKES IN CHILE

James H. Shirley**

INTRODUCTION

The historic record of seismic activity in Chile extends from
1570 forward and includes more than 40 major earthquakes (with
magnitudes of about 7.5 and larger). Well-defined temporal pat-
terns emerge when these earthquake are grouped by region of oc-
currence. Statistically significant clustering is present in the solar
times of occurrence of the earthquakes of the Northern Chile and
Transverse Valleys seismic regions. The hour angle of the Moon
(which is the 24.8 hour lunar analog of the 24 hour solar time)
also shows significant clustering for the Northern Chile and
coastal Central Chile seismic regions. These correlations of earth-
quake time of occurrence with the positioning of the Moon and
Sun suggest that gravitational stresses may contribute to the trig-
gering of major earthquakes in Chile.

Earthquakes are one of the most significant natural hazards
of life in Chile. Large deadly and damaging earthquakes have oc-
curred repeatedly in several distinct source regions along the
length of the country. Several cities here have been seriously dam-
aged by earthquakes at least five times in the period from 1530 to
the present; these include Arica, Conception, Copiapo, Coquimbo-
La Serena, Santiago, Valdivia, and Valparaiso (Lomintz, 1970).
Some of the world's largest earthquakes take place here; the
earthquake of May 22, 1960, for instance, is the largest earth-
quake recorded anywhere in the world this century (Kanamori,
1978). The historic record includes at least 19 earthquakes of
magnitude 8 or larger.

The use of unreinforced masonry construction often results in
tragically high loss of life and extensive damage to structures in
these very large earthquakes. In the Chilian earthquake of 1939,
28,000 people lost their lives; several other events have claimed
more than 1,000 lives (Lomnitz, 1970; Nelson and Ganse, 1980).
Damages in the great Valparaiso earthquake of 1906 are esti-

** Direct correspondence to: P. O. Box 169, Canoga Park, California 91305.

31

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986)

mated at approximately 3.55 billion 1980 dollars; losses due to the
1960 earthquake were approximately half as large (Nelson and
Ganse, 1980). The recent (3 March 1985) earthquake near Val-
paraiso does not rank with the 1939 and 1960 events in terms of
deaths and damages; still this event claimed more than 100 lives
and left approximately 100,000 homeless.

Great Chilean earthquakes may, in addition, represent a nat-
ural hazard for other regions because the events occurring off-
shore often generate large seismic sea waves (tsunamis). Tsunamis
originating in Chile have repeatedly damaged coastal settlements
around the Pacific Rim (for instance, in Australia, Samoa, Ha-
waii, Japan, and California) in historic times (Lomnitz, 1970;
Abe, 1979).

Lomnitz (1970) has presented a descriptive catalog of major
historic earthquakes in Chile. In the following sections this catalog
(updated and with some additions) is described and subjected to a
simple analysis to determine the presence of absence of correla-
tions of time of occurrence with the positioning of the Moon and
Sun. First, the relationship of the earthquakes to the major crustal
structural features of Chile is outlined briefly. Next the basis of
the investigation and the methodology is described; this essay con-
cludes with a discussion of the results and the implications.

EARTHQUAKES AND THE TECTONIC STRUCTURE OF

CHILE

The crustal plate which forms the ocean floor to the west of
Chile (i.e., the Nazca Plate) is overridden by the South American
continent. This is the single most important feature of the tectonic
structure of Chile. This thrusting convergence of two plates is re-
sponsible for the presence of a deep trench in the ocean floor im-
mediately offshore. This type of tectonic structure, where oceanic
crust is thrust down beneath an adjacent crustal plate, is termed a
subduction zone. Some idea of the tremendous scale of the sub-
duction process in Chile may be had by noting that in one earth-
quake (May 11, 1960) the oceanic crust along more than 800 ki-
lometers of the Chilean coast thrusted an average distance of 24
meters down to the east beneath the continent (Kanamori and
Cipar, 1974).

On land, moving from west to east, the crustal structure gen-
erally consists of a range of mountains along the coast, a central

32

valley running roughly north-south, and the Andes mountain
chain which separates Chile from Argentina to the east. There are
significant regional departures from this structural pattern, how-
ever. Following Lomnitz (1970), we can divide the Chilean seis-
mic zone into four main regions; these are the Northern region,
the Transverse Valleys region, the Central Chile region, and a
Southern Chile region. The boundaries of these regions are shown
on Figure 1 , along with the locations of the major earthquakes to
be studied here. All figures and tables appear at the end of this
essay, following references and two appendixes. The dates, times,
magnitudes, and locations of these events are listed in chronologi-
cal order in Table 1. Selection criteria (for inclusion in this list-
ing) are outlined in the footnotes to Table 1.

The Northern region, from about 1 8 South latitude to about
25 ' S, shows a center of activity offshore to the west of Arica. Six
very large earthquakes are located in this area by Lomnitz
(1970); however the most recent took place more than a century
ago, in 1869. Both the coastline and the oceanic trench offshore
bend abruptly to the northwest near Arica. The central valley
structural pattern is present north of latitude 22 S, but not in the
southern portion of this seismic region (22 -25 S).

The Transverse Valleys seismic region extends from about
25 -33 S (Lomnitz, 1970; Kelleher, 1972); here east-west trend-
ing structures are found and the central valley is generally absent.
The southern boundary of this region is just north of Valparaiso.
Here the dip angle of the subducted oceanic plate changes from
about 10 (beneath the Transverse Valleys region) to about 25-
30 (beneath the Central Chile region) (Baranzangi and Isacks,
1976). There is an east- west trending ridge on the oceanic plate
(the Juan Fernandez Ridge) at the latitude of Valparaiso which
may be in some way structurally related to this change in the sub-
duction dip angle. Thirteen of the earthquakes in Table 1 oc-
curred in the Transverse Valleys region.

The Central Chile seismic region extends from near Valpara-
iso (33 S) to the latitude of Conception (about 37 S). Here the
central valley type structure is present, and is reflected in the pat-
tern of seismic activity. There is a cluster of major earthquakes
near Valparaiso, some occurring offshore and some along the
coast. Most of the rest of the major earthquakes of this zone how-
ever took place inland, within or near the boundaries of the cen-
tral valley, in the vicinities of Santiago and Chilian. All of these

33

earthquakes (except the 1575 Santiago event) caused signficant
damage. Transverse (east-west trending) mountain ranges intrude
the central valley at about the latitude of Conception; these define
the southern boundary of this region. Lomnitz (1970) notes that
this marks a transition where major earthquake activity moves
offshore.

The Southern region, from about 37 -46 S. possesses the
central valley structure along much of its length. A submarine
ridge (the Chile Rise) intersects the continent at about 46 S,
forming the southern boundary of this region. Very large earth-
quakes take place here; the 1960 earthquake, for instance, appar-
ently involved inter-plate motion along the entire length of the
zone, from well north of Valdivia in the north all the way to the
intersection of the Chile Rise near 46 S. Lomnitz (1970) consid-
ers the 1575, 1737, and 1837 earthquakes to have been compara-
ble in size to the 1960 event. The Chilean coast south of latitude
46 S experiences a much lower level of strong earthquake
activity.

An interesting and important pattern has been detected in
the history of major eathquake activity in Chile. This is a migra-
tion of seismic activity from north to south, in the region from 30
S to 46 S (Kelleher, 1972). Kelleher showed that the earth-
quakes of 1880, 1906, 1928, 1939, and 1960 stepped one after the
other, from north to south, breaking the entire length of the Chil-
ean seismic zone south of 30 S in 80 years. Studying the record
of earlier major earthquakes he suggested that similar migrations
took place three times previously in the period since 1570, requir-
ing about 100 years to complete each cycle of activity. On this
basis he was able to predict that a new cycle should begin some-
time before the end of this century, starting at about the latitude
of Valparaiso (as this part of the zone had not broken in a major
earthquake since 1906). Two major earthquakes have occurred
near Valparaiso since his prediction was made, in 1971 and 1985.
This work clearly represents a major step forward in the effort to
achieve accurate advance prediction of earthquakes in Chile.

The absence of a major earthquake in recent history in a par-
ticular segment of seismic zone in many parts of the world indi-
cates a higher potential for a large earthquake in the future (Mc-
Cann et. al., 1979). That is, the longer the time interval since the
last event, the higher the probability of a significant earthquake in
the future. The quiet zone is termed a "seismic gap." McCann et

34

al. (1979) have considered the pattern of past activity along the
Chilean seismic zone, and identify two seismic gaps where future
large earthquakes may be expected to occur. One of these is in the
Northern region in the vicinity of Arica; this area has not experi-
ence a major earthquake in more than a century. The second gap
is near Valparaiso; the zone just south of the area affected by the
1985 earthquake must still be considered suspect.

From a physical standpoint the migration of earthquakes
along a seismic zone and the related concept of the seismic gap
can be explained as a simple stress accumulation and release cy-
cle. The occurrence of an earthquake relieves the stress in that
location, and perhaps helps focus inter-plate stresses in the areas
adjacent to the faulted zone. Then these adjacent areas become
more prone to seismic activity, while the area experiencing the
earthquake becomes seismically inactive while stresses again begin
to accumulate.

Accurate prediction of future earthquakes on the basis of the
concepts of earthquake migration and the seismic gap is not possi-
ble because the times of the future earthquakes cannot be accu-
rately specified.

METHODOLOGY

The earthquakes of Table 1 are a unique and critically im-
portant sample of events, both from a socio-economic standpoint
and from a physical standpoint. We have seen that the presence of
a migration pattern in the catalog has helped define the most
probable locations of future events. In general the detection of or-
der and pattern in such a sample is important because it sheds
light on the nature of the earthquake generation process, which is
not yet fully understood.

Presently the least satisfactory aspect of earthquake predic-
tion techniques in general is a lack of resolution in time. Thus is is
important to look for indications of temporal order and pattern in
samples of earthquakes, since by improving our understanding
these may conceivably lead to an improvement in the accuracy of
our earthquake prediction techniques. Accordingly the strategy
adopted here is to look for regularities in the time of the earth-
quakes of Table 1 .

The first temporal parameter considered is the solar time; this
is of course nothing more than the time of day, which is a mea-

35

sure of the position of the Sun. The solar day begins at midnight;
at 6 hours and 18 hours the Sun is near the horizon, while at noon
(12 hours) the Sun is positioned approximately overhead (techni-
cally, "upper culmination"). The second parameter considered is
the hour angle of the Moon, which is the same sort of positional
indicator. The "lunar day" is on the average about 50 minutes
longer than the orbit around the Earth, in a west to east direction;
thus the Earth must rotate not 360 but 373 to bring the Moon
from its upper culmination position one day to the next. The local
solar time of each earthquake is given in Table 1; the lunar hour
angle is calculated for the day, time, and geographic longitude of
each earthquake using a program written by B. Emerson of the
Royal Greenwich Observatory (Emerson, 1979). One further lu-
nar positional parameter was also evaluated; this is the ecliptic
longitude of the Moon, which is the direction with reference to the
equinox. No indication of any significant pattern was found in this
series, so for brevity this portion of the experiment is not discussed
further. For completeness the raw data and the statistical results
are summarized in an appendix.

There are two reasons for choosing these gravitational tempo-
ral parameters for analysis. First, from a physical standpoint:
Earthquakes result from stresses in the Earth, and the attractions
of the Moon and Sun produce rapidly varying stresses in the crust.
(The tidal stresses, which distort the Earth into an ellipsoidal
shape, are the best known of the gravitational stresses). Thus it
may be that oscillatory gravitational stresses help to trigger the
release of accumulated crustal stresses. The gravitational stresses
at a particular locality at a particular time depend in large part
on the positioning of the Moon and Sun.

The second reason for employing these parameters is that
other researchers have detected solar time and lunar hour angle
correlations of times of earthquakes in other regions of the planet
(McMurray, 1941; Kilston and Knopoff, 1983). Thus there are at
least two good reasons to look for gravitational temporal correla-
tions in the times of occurrence of important samples of
earthquakes.

Each solar time or lunar hour angle value can be represented
as an angle (0-359) on a circle. Statistical procedures have been
developed specifically for the analysis of directional (angular)
data. The test employed here was introduced by A. Schuster in
1897, and has since been used in many studies of tidal phase cor-

36

relations of earthquakes (McMurray, 1941; Shlien, 1972; Klein,
1976; Heaton, 1982). The test is sensitive to the clustering of val-
ues of the angles in the sample tested. If the angles are distributed
randomly about the circle, then the random probability of occur-
rence for the set is large (i.e., such a distribution would occur
often in random samples of angles); on the other hand, if the val-
ues cluster in one part of the 360 range, then the random
probability of occurrence for the set of angles will be smaller. This
procedure thus determines a random probability of occurrence for
the distribution of angles tested. Small values of the test statistic
Pr indicate a departure from randomness in the sample of angles
tested; the threshold of statistical significance is often taken to be
.05 ("5% level"). Such a value indicates that random sets of an-
gles would cluster in the fashion observed approximately once in
every 20 trials. The test is surprisingly rigorous with small sam-
ples (n, the number of angles, must be equal to or greater than 5).
The test procedure is described in Appendix 1.

A trivial modification of the test procedure (described in Ap-
pendix 1) adapts the test for the case when the angles cluster on
an axis. (For example: If the earthquakes tended to occur at both
6 A.M. and 6 P.M., the distribution would be axial or bi-modal).
It is appropriate to look for axial clustering here, because the
stresses exerted by (for instance) the Sun may be similar in nature
at sunrise and sunset, and at noon and midnight. (This is the cer-
tainly the case of the tidal stresses). Thus each set of earthquake
solar times and lunar hour angles is tested twice, once for simple
clustering and once for axial clustering.

The null hypothesis for this test is that the sets of angles
should be randomly distributed; this would suggest that the posi-
tioning of the Sun and Moon does not influence the timing or the
triggering of the earthquakes. On the other hand if the distribu-
tions depart from statistical randomness this would suggest that
the positioning of the Sun and Moon may have some physical sig-
nificance in connection with the triggering of the earthquakes
considered.

The earthquakes in Table 1 were first sorted by region. The
structure of each of the four seismic regions discussed in the pre-
vious section differs from the others in major ways. Gravitational
stresses which may be effective in aiding the triggering of earth-
quakes in one region may have no corresponding effect in another
region with a different crustal structural geometry. Thus it is to be

37

expected that if some gravitational effect is present, it may act in
different ways in different seismic provinces. At the same time
however it may be that earthquakes taking place in one particular
region may tend to occur under similar (gravitational stress) con-
ditions. This is the hypothesis to be evaluated in this search for
pattern in the positioning of the Sun and Moon for the times of
the major earthquakes of the four principle Chilean seismic
regions.

RESULTS

Table 2 gives the solar time and lunar hour angle for the
earthquakes of Table 1 . Here the events are arranged not chrono-
logically but by seismic regions and by latitude, from north to
south. The distributions of solar time and lunar hour angle for the
regional groupings are presented graphically in Figures 2-5. The
patterns (and their statistical significance) are discussed below.

Northern Chile Region

The earthquakes of the northern region are broken down into
two groups on the basis of crustal structural differences; the north-
ern group of six occurred near Arica, where the coastline bends to
the northwest, while the events near Iquique and Pisagua occurred
in a zone where the oceanic trench offshore and the crustal struc-
ture onshore trends north and south (McCann et. al., 1979, Figure
8). The solar times and lunar hour angles for the time of occur-
rence of the Arica set are shown in Figures 2A-2B. The solar time
is shown in Figure 2A; here we see that all of the major earth-
quakes for which the time of occurrence is accurately known took
place between 13:30 and 19:00 (1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.). Applica-
tion of Schuster's test reveals a low random probability of occur-
rence for this distribution of under .025; that it, random samples
of angles will cluster in this fashion only about 3% of the time.

The sample of lunar hour angles in Figure 2B provides a
good example of an axial or bi-modal distribution. The single clus-
ter version of the statistical test gives an unremarkable random
probability of .82 for this distribution, but the bi-modal test yields
a value of .026, which is again statistically significant. Here we
see that the earthquakes occurred with the Moon either 1) ap-
proaching its highest elevation in the sky, or 2) about 180 away
from this position, on the opposite side of the Earth.

38

The sample of three Iquique-Pisagua events is too small to
evaluate statistically, but we can note in passing that the solar
times of the 1871 and 1933 events are similar (5 a.m. and 4:09
a.m. respectively), while the 1877 earthquake time of 8:30 p.m. is
about Va day removed from these values.

Transverse Valleys Region

Figure 3A is the distribution of solar times for the earth-
quakes of the Transverse Valleys region. Ten of the thirteen
earthquakes took place between midnight and the following noon,
with eight of these occurring between about 6 A.M. and noon.
The distribution is statistically significant, with a random
probability of occurrence of .03 for the single-cluster test. The dis-
tribution of lunar hour angles of Figure 3B does not attain statisti-
cal significance (random probability .19) but is nevertheless inter-
estingly quite similar to the distribution of solar times. Here also
ten of the thirteen events take place with the body in question to
the east of the epicentral region.

Central Chile Region

The earthquakes in the Central Chile seismic region can be
broken down into two distinct sets, one set along the coastal zone
and another inland along the central valley. Six of the eight earth-
quakes of the coastal zone are located near Valparaiso; these in-
clude the great 1906 earthquake and also the most recent (1985)
event. Two additional coastal earthquakes to the south of Valpa-
raiso complete this set. Figure 4A is the distribution of solar times
for this group of earthquakes. Here we note that all of these
earthquakes took place between 6 P.M. and 8 A.M. Application
of the statistical test yields a random probability of occurrence of
.07 for this set. Figure 4B gives the distribution of lunar hour an-
gles for this coastal group of major earthquakes. The bi-modal
pattern shown here is statistically significant with a random
probability of .03. Thus here, as in the case of the Arica group,
both the solar and the lunar distributions have random probabili-
ties of less than 10%.

Figures 5 A and 5B give the solar times and lunar hour angles
for the group of earthquakes taking place inland in the Central
Chile seismic zone. This set incudes the great Santiago earth-
quake of 1647 and the deadly magnitude 8.3 Chilian earthquake

39

of 1939. No pattern is present in the solar time of occurrence of
these earthquakes (Figure 5A); however a weak bi-modal pattern
is present in the series of lunar hour angles for the times of these
events (Figure 5B). The random probability for this distribution is
.12 (not statistically significant).

Lomnitz (1970) locates four great earthquakes off the coast
near Conception at about 37 S, which are most probably related
to the east-west trending structural break which forms the south-
ern boundary of the Central Chile region. This set it too small to
evaluate statistically.

Southern Chile Region

Five major historic earthquakes have occurred in the South-
ern seismic region, from about 38 S to about 46 S. This group
includes the extremely large earthquake of May 1960, and several
others which may have been roughly as large. Unfortunately the
time of the 1737 event is not accurately known, leaving only four
events in the set and precluding a statistical evaluation. Still the
solar times of the remaining events cluster between 8 A.M. and a
little after 3 P.M., a range of about 7 hours (Table 2). If the solar
time of the 1737 event fell in this range the distribution would
have a random probability of under 10%.

Table 3 gives a summary of the statistical test results ob-
tained here. Two independent gravitational positional parameters
for the times of the earthquakes of four Chilean seismic sub-re-
gions were analyzed; each of the eight distributions was tested
twice, for clustering and bi-modal clustering, giving a total of six-
teen trials. In twenty trials with random samples of angles one
would expect to find perhaps one distribution showing clustering
significant at the 5% level, and perhaps two at the 10% level (ex-
periments with random samples confirm this). Here however four
of the tests show clustering significant at the 5% level. The fre-
quency of statistically signficant clustering in these distributions is
thus more than three times greater than the expectation for ran-
dom data. (As noted earlier one further parameter was also
tested, so the actual number of trials made in this experiment is
twenty-six (see Appendix 2); still the frequency of significant clus-
tering continues to exceed the expectation by a substantial
margin.)

The solar times and lunar hour angle values for the times of

40

the major historic Chilean earthquakes, when sorted by tectonic
region of occurrence, do not appear to be randomly distributed.
The results are inconsistent with the null hypothesis of no connec-
tion linking the positioning of the Moon and Sun with the timing
of major earthquakes in Chile.

Pattern emerges in Table 3. Three of the four regional sam-
ples have solar time distributions significant at the 10% level or
better with the single cluster test, while none show significant bi-
modal patterns. The opposite case obtains in the lunar hour angle
test results; three of the four groups show bi-modal clustering,
with two sets significant at the 5% level or better, but none of the
single cluster tests reveals the presence of unusual pattern. This
consistency (simple clusters in the solar times, bi-modal clusters in
the hour angles) is an additional indication of order, reinforcing
the conclusion that in these patterns we are seeing something of
physical significance.

DISCUSSION

The earthquakes considered here all have magnitudes of
about 7'/2 and larger; from a physical standpoint these are clearly
the most important events of the region, because they completely
dominate in terms of the total energy of earthquakes (Kanamori,
1978). They are also important in human terms (though some
smaller events can also be deadly and damaging). The statistical
results presented here strongly suggest that the triggering of these
major events depends in some way upon the positioning of the Sun
and Moon. The correlations are found for time scales of hours; so
far as I know this is the first investigation to uncover any short-
period temporal pattern linking these important earthquakes one
with another.

The patterns uncovered do not afford a basis for prediction of
future earthquakes, nor can they be considered to provide any sig-
nificant reduction of the earthquake hazard in Chile. One cannot
place a city on "earthquake alert" for several hours each day,
while the Sun and Moon are in higher-risk positions relative to the
region in question. The correlations found also do not constitute a
rigorous proof that some gravitational process in necessarily in-
volved in the triggering of the earthquakes, as a remarkable coin-
cidence ("statistical fluke") or some non-gravitational effect could
be involved (though these possibilities must be considered un-

41

likely). No attempt to relate these positional patterns to actual
crustal stress conditions has been made at the present time.

Temporal patterns in earthquake occurrence are rare; as
noted earlier the greatest uncertainty in present earthquake pre-
diction techniques is associated with the prediction of the times of
upcoming events. The results presented here are important be-
cause they bear upon this problem. The presence of correlations of
earthquake time with gravitational parameters suggests a physical
connection linking gravitation and the earthquake triggering
mechanism. If this is in fact the case then it is possible that fur-
ther study in this area may lead to a reduction in the uncertainty
attending the prediction of the times of future earthquakes.

The magnitude of the earthquake hazard demands that all
promising avenues of inquiry be investigated to the fullest. Cur-
rently however very little research is directed toward the question
of a possible gravitational influence on the triggering of significant
earthquakes. Hopefully the present results may stimulate greater
interest and further research into the question of a possible role
for gravitation in the triggering of earthquakes. After all, if gravi-
tation plays an important role in the triggering process, then
clearly so long as this area is ignored, accurate prediction will
continue to be "impossible with today's technology."

CONCLUSION

Statistically significant clustering is present in the positioning
of the Sun and Moon for the times of occurrence of historic major
earthquakes in Chile, when the events are grouped by tectonic re-
gion of occurrence. The results of this investigation suggest that
gravitational stresses may play a contributory role in the trigger-
ing of major earthquakes in Chile.

Acknowledgment: I thank Bob Claxton for help with the problem
of determining the correct dates for events prior to the introduc-
tion of the Gregorian calendar.

Note added in proof: An important paper by S. P. Nishenko was
published after this study was completed ("Seismic Potential for
Large and Great Interplate Earthquakes Along the Chilean and
Southern Peruvian Margins of South America: A Quantitative
Reappraisal"; Journal of Geophysical Research 90, 3589 (1985).
Nishenko's paper provides the best estimates to date of the
probability of future earthquakes in specific regions along the

42

Chilean seismic zone. This paper should be of great interest to
planners and others working in the area of earthquake hazard
mitigation. Nishenko assigns high risk of earthquakes in the next
20 years to several segments of the Chilean seismic zone.

Nishenko subdivides the Chilian seismic zone in a manner
somewhat different from that employed here. For instance, he
groups the 1939 and 1953 Chilian earthquakes and the 1928
Talca event with the set of Concepcion earthquakes. No revision
of the subdivisions used here was made on the basis of Nishenko's
work, as this is not good practice from the standpoint of statistical
method (Heaton, 1982). I note in passing that the use of
Nishenko's geographical breakdowns would not alter the conclu-
sions of this study, as the significance levels of several subregions
continue to be high. As an example: The new set of events near
Concepcion (as described above) shows .04 level bi-modal cluster-
ing for the solar time and 6% level bi-modal clustering for the
lunar hour angles. Removing the 1928 event from the coastal
Central Chile distribution improves the already significant pattern
in the Moon hour angle, and subtracting the Chilian events from
the Central Valley set (where no signficant patterns were found)
leaves a sample too small to evaluate.

REFERENCES

Abe, K., (1979). Size of Great Earthquakes of 1837-1974 Inferred from Tsunami Data,

Journal of Geophysical Research 84, 1561.
Baranzangi, M., and B. Isacks, (1976). Spatial Distribution of Earthquakes and Subduc-

tion of the Nazca Plate Beneath South America, Geology, 4, 686.
Emerson, B., (1979). Appropriate Lunar Coordinates, Nautical Almanac Office Tech.

Note #48, H. M. Stationery Office.
Gutenberg, B., and C. F. Richter, (1954). Seismicity of the Earth, Princeton University

Press.
Heaton, T. H., (1982). Tidal Triggering of Earthquakes, Bulletin of the Seismological

Society of America 72, 2181.
Kanamori, H., (1978). Quantification of Earthquakes, Nature 271, 411.
Kanamori, H., and J. Cipar, (1974). Focal Process of the Great Chilean Earthquake,

May 22, 1960, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 9, 128.
Kelleher, J., (1972). Rupture Zones of Large South American Earthquakes and Some

Predictions, Journal of Geophysical Research 77, 2087.
Kilston, S., and L. Knopoff, (1983). Lunar-Solar Periodicities of Large Earthquakes in

Southern California, Nature 304, 21.
Klein, F. W., (1976). Earthquake Swarms and the Semidiurnal Solid Earth Tide, Geo-
physical Journal of the Royal Astonomical Society 45, 245.
Lomnitz, C, (1970). Major Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Chile during the Period 1535

to 1955, Geol. Rundsch. 58, 938.
Mardia, K., (1972). Statistics of Directional Data, pp. 133-135, 300; Academic Press,

43

London.

McCann, W. R., S. P. Nishenko, L. R. Sykes, and J. Krause, (1979). Seismic Gaps and
Plate Tectonics: Seismic Potential for Major Boundaries, Pure and Applied Geophys-
ics 117, 1089.

McMurray, H., (1941). Periodicity of Deep-Focus Earthquakes, Bulletin of the Seismo-
logical Society of America 31,33.

Nelson, J. B., and R. A. Ganse, (1980). Significant Earthquakes 1900-1979, National
Geophysical and Solar-Terrestrial Data Center, Boulder, Colorado 80303.

National Geophysical and Solar-Terrestrial Data Center (NGSDC), NOAA-ESIS, Boul-
der, Colorado 80303 (computer listing, 1982).

Schuster, A., (1897). On Lunar and Solar Periodicities of Earthquakes, Proceedings of
the Royal Society A 61, 455.

Shlien, S., (1972). Earthquake-Tide Correlation, Geophysical Journal of the Royal Asto-
nomical Society 28, 27.

44

APPENDIX 1: STATISTICAL EVALUATION OF
DIRECTIONAL DATA

The procedure employed here was first suggested by A.
Schuster in 1897, in connection with the analysis of tidal phases
and the timing of earthquakes. In this simple test the angular
phases ($;) if the n events (i.e., the Sun and Moon directions,
each considered as unit vectors) are summed. The vector resultant
magnitude R and phase <j> are given by

R = J (A)2 + (B)2 and <p - tan"1 ( )

A

n n

where A = y cos (0/ ), B = ) sin (0/ )

i=l i=l

The probability Pr of obtaining a resultant of length R or
greater is approximately

-R2

PR = exp ( )

when n ^ about 8. Pr is often described as the probability that a
random walk of n steps will travel a distance R from the origin.
The theoretical properties of R have received further attention
since the test was originally suggested, and critical values of R/n
for. n ^ 5 are given in Mardia (1972). Mardia's tabulated critical
values (his appendix 2.5) are used to determine significance levels
of small samples as presented here in Table 3.

If a bi-modal distribution is expected then the initial values
of ($i) are first converted as follows:

(0/)bimodal = 2 ($f) (where 360 should be subtracted from
values exceeding this threshold, i.e., 476 = 115)

See Shlien (1972) and Mardia (1972) for a more extensive discus-
sion of bi-modal and multi-modal distributions. (Note: In Mardia

45

the statistical procedure described here is termed the Rayleigh
test).

It is important in this sort of investigation to ensure that no
systematic effects are present which may possibly bias the results.
This would be the case for instance if the Sun spent twice as long
in the midnight-noon range as in the noon-midnight range; in this
case randomly distributed times would cluster in the midnight-
noon range, and the statistical test would yield a significant result
when in fact no systematic, ordered behavior was occurring. Ex-
perimentation with random sets of directions/times is recom-
mended, as this can help detect systematic variations (whose ori-
gins may at times be quite subtle and elusive). It is extremely
important to define the procedure and the sample to be tested
before examining the data. There is a large temptation to arrange
the data after examination, which must be resisted; this is cheat-
ing, akin to having a look at your opponent's hands in a card
game before deciding how to bet (Heaton, 1982).

Finally it is also necessary to remove foreshocks and after-
shocks from earthquake samples subjected to statistical analysis;
by including them one earthquake event is in effect counted many
times, often leading to erroneous conclusions regarding the signfi-
cance of results.

46

APPENDIX 2: LUNAR ECLIPTIC LONGITUDES FOR THE
MAJOR EARTHQUAKES OF TABLE 1

Statistical Summary:

Single Cluster

Bi-modal cluster

Northern Chile (Arica)

.69

.21

Transverse Valleys

.62

.35

Central Chile Coastal

.55

.15

Central Chile Interior

.43

.74

Southern Chile

.08

.94

Data:

Region/Year

Longitude

Northern Chile, Arica

1604

289.24

1615

105.47

1681

242.41

( + 8)

1715

75.33

1868

81.42

1869

359.74

Iquique-Pisagua

1877

10.48

1871

87.36

1933

319.37

Transverse Valleys

1966

103.88

1918

261.19

1909

309.05

1946

196.49

1796

268.23

1819

113.20

1859

300.05

1851

15.7

1922

123.4

1849

263.45

1847

186.94

1880

259.87

1943

38.05

47

Central Chile,

Coastal

1730

30.79

1822

306.47

1906

107.42

1971

295.11

1985

120.76

1851

20.17

1914

352.91

1928

121.57

Central Chile,

Interior

1687?

145.42?

1688?

283.05?

1575

74.34

1647

175.93

1850

285.53

1939

354.34

1953

318.54

Conception Offshore

1570

9.69

1657

6.44

1751

66.64

1835

247.62

Southern Chile

1575

84.55

1737

313.53

( + 8)

1837

340.6

1960

31.13

1975

41.16

Note: Values for days when solar time is unknown (1681, 1737)
are computed for local noon; these may be in error by approxi-
mately seven to eight degrees. Lbmnitz (1970) lists one earth
quake which occurred either in 1687 or 1688; values for both pos-
sible dates are given.

48

Table 1: Major Earthquakes in Chile, 1570-1985
Date Time Location W Lon S Lat Mag

Feb 08 1570

09:00

Concepcion

75

37

8-8.5

Mar 17 1575

10:00

Santiago

71.5

33

7-7.5

Dec 15 1575

15:00

Valdivia

75

40

8.5

Nov 24 1604

13:30

Arica

72

18

8.25-8.5

Sep 16 1615

17:00

Arica

72

18

7.5

May 13 1647

22:30

Santiago

71

33.5

8.5

Mar 15 1657

20:00

Concepcion

75

37

8

Mar 10 1681

?

Arica

72

18

7-7.5

Jul 12 1687/8?

13:00

Santiago

71

33

7-7.5

Aug 22 1715

19:00

Arica

72

17

7.5

Jul 08 1730

04:45

Valparaiso

73

33

8.75

Dec 24 1737

?

Valdivia

75

40

7.5-8

May 25 1751

01:00

Concepcion

75

37

8.5

Mar 30 1796

06:45

Copiapo

71

27.5

7.5-8

Apr 03 1819

10:00

Copiapo

72

27.5

8.25-8.5

Nov 19 1822

22:15

Valparaiso

72

33

8.5

Feb 20 1835

11:30

Concepcion

75

37

8-8.25

Nov 07 1837

08:00

Valdivia

75

40

>8

Oct 08 1847

11:00

Illapel

71.5

32

7.5

Nov 17 1849

06:00

Coquimbo

73

30

7.5

Dec 06 1850

06:42

Santiago

70

34

7-7.5

Apr 02 1851

06:48

Valparaiso

72

33.5

7-7.5

May 26 1851

13:14

Copiapo

72

28

7-7.5

Oct 05 1859

08:00

Copiapo

71

27.5

7.5-7.75

Aug 13 1868

16:45

Arica

72

18

8.5

Aug 24 1869

13:30

Arica

71

18.5

7-7.75

Oct 05 1871

05:00

Iquique

71

21

7-7.5

May 10 1877

20:30

Pisagua

71

20

8-8.5

Aug 15 1880

08:48

Illapel

72

32

7.5-8

Aug 16 1906

20:40

Valparaiso

72

33

8.6

Jun 08 1909

01:46

Copiapo

70.5

26.5

7.6

Jan 29 1914

23:36

Constitution

73

35

7.6

Dec 04 1918

07:47

Copiapo

71

26

7.75

Nov 11 1922

00:32

Huasco

71

28.5

8.4

Dec 01 1928

00:06

Talca

72.5

35

8.4

Feb 23 1933

04:09

Iquique

71.5

20.5

7.6

Jan 24 1939

23:32

Chilian

72.5

36.5

8.3

Apr 06 1943

12:07

Illapel

72

30.7

8.3

49

Aug 02 1946

15:18

Copiapo

70.5

26.5

7.5

May 06 1953

13:18

Chilian

72.5

36.5

7.5

May 22 1960

15:11

Valdivia

72.6

38.2

8.3

Dec 28 1966

04:18

Copiapo

707

25.5

7.75

Jul 08 1971

23:03

Valparaiso

71.1

32.5

7.5

May 10 1975

10:27

Valdivia

73.2

38.2

7.7

Mar 03 1985

18:47

Valparaiso

71.8

32.9

7.7

Most of the earthquakes listed were tabulated by Lomnitz
(1970). He included known historic earthquakes with magnitudes
which may have reached 7.5, based on the observed effects of the
earthquakes (no instrumental records are available for earth-
quakes before the turn of the century). Gutenberg and Richter
(1954) list four earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.5 or larger not
included in the list by Lomnitz; these four (1909, 1914, 1933, and
1946) have been included here. Five major earthquakes in the
years 1 960-present have also been added; the data for these events
in general comes from the NOAA catalog (NGSDC, 1982). Five
events from Lomnitz' catalog have been dropped from this listing,
one in 1829 of small magnitude (7.0), two from the region near
Tierra del Fuego (a different tectonic region), and two which oc-
curred immediately following the 1819 earthquake in the same lo-
cation. The date listed for the 1981 earthquake by Lomnitz (Dec.
18) is incorrect.

The local date and time are given in the first two columns.
For the first three events the date refers to the Julian calendar
with modern (Gregorian) year. The times for the events after
1900 are Greenwich time minus four hours. Approximate loca-
tions of the earthquakes are given in columns 3-5; note that the
cities specified to indicate a region, not a precise location. The
longitude and latitude values give a more precise location, but are
still only approximate for events before 1900 (see Lomnitz, 1970
for a discussion of the method of determining most probable loca-
tions of early events). Magnitude values are as given in the source
catalogs.

50

Table 2: Solar Times and Lunar Hour Angles for Major
Earthquakes

Region/Year

Solar Time

Lunar Hour

(degrees)

(degrees)

Northern Chile Region

Arica (Figure 2)
1715

285.0

179.9

1604

202.5

336.1

1615

255.0

142.9

1681

?

?

1868

251.2

132.8

1869

202.5

354.3

Iquique/Pisagua
1877

307.5

166.7

1933

51.0

240.8

1871

75.0

1.8

Transverse Valleys Regior
1966

i (Figure 3)
53.8

44.8

1918

105.7

277.5

1909

15.9

319.5

1946

218.9

332.9

1796

101.2

22.0

1819

150.0

225.0

1859

120.0

190.8

1851

198.5

66.0

1922

352.6

275.5

1849

90.0

243.2

1943

169.6

326.5

1847

165.0

355.8

1880

132.0

194.8

Central Chile Region

Coastal Zone (Figure 4)
1971 334.6

323.4

1985

270.0

307.7

1730

71.2

330.1

1822

333.7

83.1

1906

297.7

153.8

1851

102.0

271.9

1914

341.0

116.3

1928

349.6

294.2

51

1647

337.5

1850

100.5

1939

340.4

1953

186.7

Concepci

on Offshore

1570

135.0

1657

300.0

1751

15.0

1835

172.5

Southern Chile

Region

1960

215.2

1975

143.5

1575

225.0

1737

?

1837

120.0

Interior (Central Valley) (Figure 5)
1575 150.0 260.1

1687/88 195.0 ?

31.1

248.7

110.5

90.1

272.8

109.8

192.3

76.4

65.5

332.9

235.6
?

183.1

The solar time and lunar hour angle values are given in deci-
mal degrees. For the Sun, 90 is equivalent to 06:00 (6 A.M.).
The solar times of the earthquakes are given in conventional nota-
tion in Table 1. Both the solar time and the lunar hour angle in-
crease in a clockwise direction, but the zero hours differ; the solar
day starts at midnight, but the lunar hour angle is zero when the
Moon is overhead at upper culmination. Figures 2-5 reflect this
difference; these are arranged so the actual directions, as seen by
a local observer, are represented in the same way for both bodies.
Thus if an earthquake occurred at noon, with the Moon also over-
head, both diagrams would plot this direction "straight up," even
though the solar time is 12 (180) and the lunar time is 0 (0).

The solar times before 1900 (before the worldwide introduc-
tion of time zones) are assumed to be the correct solar time at the
longitude of the earthquake. After 1900 or so the times of earth-
quakes are reported in catalogs in Greenwich time; to convert this
value to solar time at the longitude of the earthquake it is neces-
sary to subtract (west longitude degrees times 4 minutes) from
Greenwich time of day in minutes. This value of solar time will
differ slightly from the "correct" time in the local time zone for
recent earthquakes; however this procedure is clearly most appro-
priate because it gives the solar times all on the same scale.

52

The algorithm for calculating the lunar coordinates (Emer-
son, 1979) on the other hand requires the correct Greenwich date
and time, along with the earthquake longitude, to calculate the
lunar hour angle. Thus here reported Greenwich times of recent
earthquakes can be used without modification, but correct Green-
wich times for early events must be calculated using the inverse
procedure from that outlined above. That is, Greenwich time
equals the local solar time plus (west longitude degrees times 4
minutes).

The uncertainties in the values of the lunar and solar posi-
tions thus calculated of course depend on the accuracy of the
earthquake times. An error of two hours will cause the solar and
lunar positions to be in error by up to about 30, which will
change the distributions sufficiently to alter the statistical results
in important ways. However, if the inaccuracies in the reported
times are on the order of minutes, only small changes in the distri-
butions will result. (The question of the accuracy of origin times
applies only to pre- 1900 events).

Table 3: Summary of Statistical Results

Region Solar Time Lunar Hour Angle

1 Mod. 2 Mod. 1 Mod. 2 Mod.

N. Chile (Arica)

<.025

.34

.82

.026

Transverse Valleys

,03

.68

.19

.66

Central, Coastal

.07

.28

.57

<.025

Central, Interior

.78

.14

.94

.12

Single cluster and bi-modal tests are denoted by 1 Mod. and
2 Mod. (Mod. = Modal) respectively. The decimal numbers in
the table are computed values of the statistical random probability
of occurrence for the distributions of angles in Table 2 and
Figures 2-5. Distributions where the random probability is .1
(10%) or less are underlined. (Discussion in text).

53

20 S

76 W

Northern Region

PACIFIC OCEAN

Transverse

Valleys
30 S

40 S

llapel
_ S
aloarafso

XSant

Central Region

Chilian
Coricepcion

500 K M

iago

Z

Z
in
O

cc

Figure 1: Chilean Seismic Regions and Major Historic
Earthquakes

54

Figure 2: Distribution of Solar Times and Lunar Hour Angles for
the Northern Chile Region (Arica Earthquakes)

NOON

Figure 2A shows the solar times for the Arica earthquakes.
In this figure the 24 hour day begins at 0 hours, local midnight, at
the bottom of the diagram. The solar times of the five earthquakes
cluster in the range from about 1:30 p.m. to about 7 p.m. (Tables
1 and 2). The statistical random probability of occurrence for this
distribution is .025.

55

18h

12 h

Figure 2B is a plot of lunar hour angles for the times of the
Arica earthquakes. Here the 0 hour corresponds to the time when
the Moon is overhead (at upper culmination) as seen by an ob-
server at the longitude of the earthquake epicenter. The bi-modal
random probability of occurrence for this distribution is less than
3% (see discussion in text and Appendix 1 for a description of the
statistical method).

56

Figure 3: Distribution of Solar Times and Lunar Hour Angles for
Earthquakes of the Transverse Valleys Seismic Region

NOON

The distribution of solar times in Figure 3A shows a prefer-
ence for times from about 6 a.m. to noon, with eight of the thir-
teen events in this range. The random probability for this distribu-
tion is .03.

57

18h

12 h

Figure 3B shows that the lunar hour angles for the times of
the Transverse Valleys earthquakes also mainly fall into the range
where the Moon is to the east of the epicenter (from 1 2 hours to 0
hours). This distribution however falls short of statistical signifi-
cance, with a random probability of .19.

58

Figure 4: Solar Times and Lunar Hour Angles for the Earth-
quakes of the Central Chile Coastal Zone

NOON

The earthquakes of the coastal zone from Valparaiso south to
Constitution tend to occur in the evening, between 6 p.m. and
midnight (Figure 4A). Random samples of times will show this
sort of clustering about 7% of the time.

59

18h

12 h

A well developed bi-modal pattern is found in the lunar hour
angles for the times of these earthquakes. The distribution indi-
cated that major earthquakes in this region tend to occur two to
three hours after moonrise and a similar period after "moonset."
The bi-modal random probability here is .025.

Figure 5: Solar Times and Lunar Hour Angles for Earthquakes of
the Central Chile Seismic Region (Inland) Next page.

The solar times (Figure 5A) and the lunar hour angles (Fig-
ure 5B) for these earthquakes each show a weak tendency toward
bi-modal clustering, but neither distribution is statistically re-
markable with random probabilities of .14 and .12 respectively.
Figure 5B is the third of our four hour angles distributions to
show bi-modal pattern.

60

NOON

18h

12 h

61

MASTER LIST OF HISTORIC (Pre 1840)

EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANIC

ERUPTIONS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

Lawrence H. Feldman**

INTRODUCTION

What follows is a Master List of all earthquakes/volcanic
eruptions pertaining to Central America, located as of April 24,
1981 for the United States Department of the Interior Geological
Survey. Most references are derived from the Archivo General de
Centro-America (AGCA) or the Archivo General de Indias
(AGI). A word is in order on reference citations. Manuscripts at
the AGCA are cited by Signatura-Expediente-Legajo:folio num-
bers while AGI manuscripts have Ramo name and Legajo num-
ber. For each archive a bundle of manuscripts is called a legajo,
individual manuscripts in a bundle being known as expedientes
while a ramo is a section of an archive. As used here, signatura
numbers are equivalent to ramos. As an example of this system in
operation, "Guatemala 658" is legajo 658 of the ramo Audiencia
de Guatemala while "A1.11.25(4)-1428-123" is signatura
Al. 11.25 of Honduras ( = 4), expediente number 1428 and legajo
number 123. A published journal of the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth century, the Gazeta de Guatemala, is cited as if it were a
ramo. The copies actually used are kept by the AGI. Other
archives whose manuscripts are cited are that of the University of
Texas (UT), Museo Naval de Madrid (AMN), the Real
Academia de Historia (Madrid) and the Biblioteca Colombina
(Seville). Other archives checked whose records did not provide
useful data were: (1) Hacienda de Sevilla, (2) Biblioteca Univer-
sitaria (Seville), (3) Biblioteca de Circulo de Amistad (Cordoba),
(4) Biblioteca Publica Provincial de Cordoba, (5) Biblioteca Pub-
lica de Granada, (6) Biblioteca General de Universitario (Gra-
nada), (7) Archivo de la Real Chancelleria (Granada), (8)
Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid), (9) Archivo General de

Direct correspondence to: Apartment 7E, 306 Hitt Street, Columbia, Missouri

.1 th

63

65201. The author wishes to express special thanks to Jan Glasco, his assistant in Spain

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986)

Simancas (Valladolid) and (10) Archivo del Servicio Historico
Militar (Madrid).

No systematic attempt was made to use other data sources
but reference is made to data found in the Annals of the Cakchi-
quels (Recinos and Goetz 1953), Fuentes y Guzman (1932), Cor-
tes y Larraz (1958), Recinos (1954), Bernal Diaz del Castillo and
Francisco Vasquez. Data from the last two are derived from foot-
notes in Recinos and Goetz (1953), while Fuentes y Guzman cer-
tainly has other pertinent data not cited here. Other published
sources that deserve further investigation are the letters of Pedro
Alvarado (written ca. 1525), Gonzalo Fernandes de Oviedo (writ-
ten in the early 16th century-one should note that he has two sep-
arate works, an Historia natural and an Historia general, both of
potential value), Diego Palacio (1576), Vasquez (17th century),
Thomas Gage (17th century), Francisco Ximenez (again two,
18th century, works-an Historia natural and an Historia gen-
eral), Bartolome de Las Casas (several different early 16th cen-
tury works), and Antonio Remesal (ca. 1600). In Central
America it might be of value to check the National Archives in
Tegucigalpa, Honduras and the State Archives in Tuxtla Gutier-
rez, Chiapas. Certainly the AGCA church reconstruction manu-
scripts, listed in the Appendix, will have some new quake cita-
tions. Manuscripts, from the same archive, marked not seen in the
Master List, certainly should be examined for quake data, (the
references are derived from the AGCA card catalogue). Thirdly,
at the AGCA, a selection might be made of Protocolos and
Cabildo records, by pertinent years, for intensive investigation.

With all references an attempt was made to use primary eye-
witness accounts as opposed to secondary sources represented by
the compilers of historical accounts. Because of the nature of
Spanish colonial administrative procedure, to grant tax relief and
disaster funding upon receipt of sworn testimony, such data was
common, although rarely published in the literature. Since the
royal government was responsible for the collection and expendi-
ture of Church funds, and given that the only substantial public
building in many communities was the church, accounts of church
reconstruction expenditures provided a valuable means of check-
ing the effects of quakes outside of the capital cities, the only
places usually mentioned in the published historical chronicles and
in many manuscript sources.

Finally some word should be said of those colonial secondary

64

sources which, because they are so often quoted, need to be recog-
nized for what they are, namely not eyewitness accounts. Fuentes
y Guzman, Remesal and Vazquez are both primary and secondary
sources. They are extremely useful because they cite now lost pri-
mary sources but, except in so far as they report events witnessed
by the authors themselves (as they often do), they are not pri-
mary. The printed eighteenth century relaciones on the Guatema-
lan quakes (of Guatemala 658) are highly useful, purely second-
ary reports of quakes in and about Antigua and Jalapa. They
provide data for Pardo (1944) and Juarros (1936) and, because
they are unavailable today, have been copied for this project. But
they are not primary. The primary records are contained in the
abundant certified testimony that also may be found in these same
archives.

THE MASTER LIST

[sample]

DATE OF OCCURRENCE POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF

OCCURRENCE

Place of Occurrence

Date of Descriptive Document: Document Identification
Description of event (archaic spelling maintained)

Editor's Note: All dates before October 15, 1582 are in the Julian
Calendar mode of reckoning time. All Catholic nations adopted
the Gregorian Calendar correction on the cited date.

65

ca. 1505 GUATEMALA

Santiago Atitlan

1585, 8 Febrero: Relation de Santiago Atitlan, UT#65. Del
uno [Volcan Fuego] se tiene noticia que en los anos
pasados puede haver ochenta anos poco mas o menos
revento, y echa mucha cantidad de agua, piedra y
fuego, y ansi ahora se echa de ver por estar todo lo que
dize la boca pelado y quemado, a modo de una
caldera.

1530, Mayo 29 GUATEMALA

Ciudad Vieja

1719: Guatemala 309. Notes terremotos at Ciudad Vieja in

1530, no month. Quetzaltenango, San Marcos
1530: Libro de Ayuntamiento (o Cabildo) de Guatemala 1.

Mayo 29, 1530.

1535 GUATEMALA

Solola

1535: Annals of the Cakchiquel. "I heard Hunahpu [Vol-
can Fuego] rumble".

1538, Mayo 1 NICARAGUA

Volcan Masaya

1538: Patronato Real 180-1-71. Testimonio de una informa-
tion hecha en Nicaragua sobre el Volcan de Masaya y
cuerca de en tras en el y reconocerse sus metales.

1585: Guatemala 56. Probanza data citation of above,
nothing of interest.

1541 GUATEMALA

Santiago Atitlan

1585, 8 Febrero. Relation de Santiago Atitlan, UT#65.
Eruption of Volcan Fuego.

1541, Septiembre 11 GUATEMALA

Ciudad Vieja

1774: Guatemala 658.

1541: Patronato Real 181-1-2. Relation hecha por el obispo
de Guatemala de lo sucedido alii el dia 10 de Septiem-

66

bre con motivo de un Volcan. Description of mud slide
after heavy rains and during heavy rains. Took place 2
AM. No quake mentioned in either of two given
letters.

1541, Octobre 14: Guatemala 46. Reference to "Gran Ter-
remoto" in letter signed by Francisco Castellano (trea-
surer of government of Guatemala) at Ciudad Vieja in
1541.

1559, Enero 4: Patronato 62-2-13. Fallescio el dicho ade-
lantado en servicio de VM desde a dos meses sucedio
el terremoto desta Ciudad de Guatemala.

1552, 31 Marzo GUATEMALA

Solola

1552: Annals of the Cakchiquel. On the day 9 Ah [March
31, 1552] fire emerged from inside the volcano
[Fuego].

1565 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1565: Libro de Ayuntamiento (o Cabildo) de Guatemala
4:folio 77-as cited in Fuentes y Guzman 1932:1:260.
Revento este monte [either Volcan Fuego or Pacaya as
he equates the two], con grande ruina de esta ciudad y
sus contornos, la ultima vez en nuestra tiempos, el afio
de 1565 (FyG wrote ca. 1699).

1565, Agosto y Septiembre GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658. cf. Guatemala 661 for further detail.
San Juan Comalapa

1774: Guatemala 658. Fuertes temblores quales sintieron
gravemente.

1566, Mayo GUATEMALA

Patzun

1566: Annals Cakchiquel. There was a terrible earthquake;
houses toppled over in Zelahay and Patzun but no
damage was caused here in Solola.
Antigua

1566: Bernal Diaz del Castillo, chapter 214. In the year

67

1566, being. . .month of May, between one and two in
the afternoon, the earth began to shake in such a way
that houses and walls and even roofs were lifted and
many of them fell to the ground and others were left
without roofs, lying to one side. . .And of those severe
earthquakes which lasted nine days there is much to
say. . .

1569 GUATEMALA

Nestiquipaque, San Cristobal (near Chiquimulilla)

1570: Contaduria 967. El licenciado Brizeno gobernador que
fue desta provincia para ayuda a hazer la iglesia y
reparar sus casas que Servian caido con cierto tenblor
que en el dicho pueblo.

1571, Diciembre GUATEMALA

1571: Annals Cakchiquel. On December 25 the Volcano
erupted. There was fire and darkness over the city of
Xelahub during Christmas.

1 575 CHIAPAS/NICARAGUA

Provincias de Chiapa hasta Nicaragua

1774: Guatemala 658. Perdida muchas vidas y hacienda en
toda la Provincia de Chiapa a la de Nicaragua.

Antigua

1773: Guatemala 661. Cites Jose de Acosta as source for
data.

1577, Noviembre 29 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658. Ultimo dia de Noviembre 1577, 3
hour quake destroyed much in Antigua.

Sacatepequez (en departamento de San Marcos), Antigua

1578, Marzo 17: Guatemala 10. En 29 de Noviembre de 77
vino un temblor de tierra en toda esta provincia y
deudo dezze. . .uentar en un pueblo que se dize Za-
catepeque quel de la encomienda de Dona Leonor de
Alvarado. Tenian acauado un monestero. . .y trauajo
de los indios todo de teja muy bien cobrado. El iglesia
el qual dezribo por los cimientos la fuerza del tenblor y
del mesmo pueblo 60 casas de yndios. . .En el este

68

tanto que lo tracosa se proure suedios servido que no
hiciese e ningun dafto el monesterio ni las casas y este
mismo tenblor aunque no contenta forza sucedio en
este ciudad en aquella misma forza y dista quarenta
leguas.
Solola

1577: Annals Cakchiquel. On November 28, in the middle of
the night, we were shaken by an earthquake, on the
eve of the feast of San Andres.
Antigua

n.d.: Vazquez (17th century). The earthquakes which
started in 1575 continued destroying many buildings
in this province until San Andres day, in 1577, at
midnight, when there was a farewell swing which
lasted almost three hours. Many houses were ruined
and then (the earthquakes) stopped.

1581, Diziembre 26 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658.

Solola

1581: Annals Cakchiquel. During the celebration of Santo
Tomas, December 5, 1581, fire from the Volcano of
Fire was seen. It was really a big eruption, which in-
creased during Christmas and stopped afterward.

1581 EL SALVADOR

San Salvador

1801: Guatemala 942. Iglesia parroquial de San Salvador ar-
ruinada, (from context guess that was quake caused).

1582, Enero 14 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658. Eruption only.
Santiago Atitlan

1582, Febrero 8. Relation de Santiago Atitlan. UT #65. Este
propio bolcan [Fuego] cuando revanto el de Guate-
mala puede haber tres anos poco mas o menos echo
fuego aunque muy poco. Y ansi de cuando en cuando,
por las mananas y algunas tardes echa humo aunque
es poco cosa. Llamase este bolcan en la lengua

69

materna Hunqat, que suena "cosa que quema entre
si".

1585, Enero 16 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658.
Solola

1585: Annals Cakchiquel. On the sixteenth of January there
was a very big earthquake which lasted until sundown.

1586, Diciembre 5 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1586: Annals Cakchiquel. On December 5, at daybreak, an
earthquake destroyed houses in Antigua. Some
Spaniards were among these who died.

1586, Diciembre 23 GUATEMALA

1774: Guatemala 658.

1587: Guatemala 10. Tenblor que a 23 de diziembre del ano
pasado de 86 Vuo en ella que. . .recio y fuerte que se
cayeron como sesenta casas de gente pobre y las de
mas y la dicha yglesia mayor y monesterios quedaron
arruynadas y muy maltratados y en especial la dicha
iglesia mayor cuya fabrica es muy tenue y pobre. cf.
also Guatemala 678. ANTIGUA.

1587 (San Phelipe) GUATEMALA

Antigua

1773, Septiembre 1: Guatemala 661. Cuando comenzo a
respiran fuego una de los tres volcanes la otra
(quake?) por el dia de San Phelipe.

1594, Abril 21 EL SALVADOR

Ciudad de San Salvador

1595, Enero 18: Guatemala 43.

1607, Octubre 9 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1607, Octubre 23: Al-1-1. Auto promulgado por el Pre-
sidente Dr. Alonso Criado de Castilla, ordenado sean
traidos indigenas de algunos pueblos comarca dos para

70

los trabajos de descombramiento de la Ciudad, abatida
por temblores desde la noche del 9 del mismo mes y
ano. Not seen.
1608: Guatemala 12. A nueve de Octubre pasado a las diez
de la noche un terremoto repentino que dio tres impe-
tus. . .los quales quedaron muy quebrantados y
muchos aruinadas (todos los edificios e yglesias y
monesterios desta ciudad). Vino este terremoto o tem-
blor de la parte del norte a mediodia. . .y tras del sub-
cediron otros muchos temblores continuadamente was
de seis meses. . .continues with talk of "los quatro ele-
mentos" and the volcanic cause of quakes.

1609 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1609: Guatemala 678. Noticia sobre el gran temblor de
tierra que continuaron por espacio de cuatro meses. 1
folio, date of manuscript is 5 Octubre 1609.

1610, Marzo 22 HONDURAS

Comayagua

1610-1611: Guatemala 167. Arruinada iglesia walls.

1610, 16 enero NICARAGUA

1610: Guatemala 43.

1610 NICARAGUA

Volcan Momotombo

after 1781: Archivo Museo Naval, Madrid Ms. 570 #6.
Eruption.

1621, Mayo 2 hasta Agosto 21 PANAMA

Ciudad de Panama

1640: Relation Historica y Geografica de la Provincia de
Panama por Juan Requejo Salcedo. EN Relaciones de
America Central, Madrid; Libreria General de
Victoriano Suarez. 1908. DE Coleccion de Libro y
Documentos Referentes a la Historia de America,
Tomo 8, pps 1-84; quake data pps 40-61. Refers to un
temblor y temblores que duraron por mas de tres
meses y medio, desde 2 de Mayo hasta 21 de Agosto,

71

vispera de San Bartoleme el ano de 1621, que se con-
tinuaron casi cada dia, algunas de doce, diez y menos
remezones.

1650 EL SALVADOR

San Salvador

1650: Guatemala 942. Iglesia Parroquial de San Salvador ar-
ruinada, (from context guess was quake).

1651, Febrero 18 GUATEMALA

Antigua

ca. 1699: See Fuentes y Guzman 1932:1:262-263 for detailed
description of quake which continued to March 5.

1651, Octubre 8 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658.

1654 GUATEMALA

Amatitlan

1662: Guatemala 72. La iglesia de dicho pueblo esta amena-
zando ruina por los grandes temblores de tierra y ter-
remotos que a aviso en aquella partes. Asking for
money in Die 5 1654-los temblores grandes que ahora
tres anos hubo maltrataron tanto la iglesia del dicho
pueblo.

1655, Junio 22 GUATEMALA

Pacaya/Fuego (author does not distinguish between them)

ca. 1699: See Fuentes y Guzman 1932:1:262 for detailed
description of eruption and ash fall.

1658, Noviembre 3 EL SALVADOR

San Salvador

1658: A 1.1 -2-1 (3). Medidas tomadas para proteger al
vecindario de San Salvador, con motivo del terremoto
habido el 3 de Noviembre. Also see A 1.1 -3-1 (3).

1658 EL SALVADOR

San Salvador

1658: Al. 1-2-1:7 (3). Breve Relation de la Reventazon del

72

Volcan de la Ciudad de San Salvador.
Provincias de San Miguel y San Salvador

1659: Guatemala 387. A quese le acrecento una gran ruina
ocasionado de hauer rebentado un bolcan cuias cenicas
destruyeron los fructos y los temblores de la tierra, las
casas y senaladamente los templos, de la yglesia par-
rochial y las de Santo Domingo, San Francisco y la
merced y refuil las asistencia, personal que hicistes en
la ciudad de San Salvador. . .reparo de la iglesia.

San Salvador

1660: Guatemala 20. Un volcan que estaba junto a la Ciu-
dad de San Salvador de bento que causo mucho dafio a
su con los temblores de tierra como con las cenicas que
se diuir dieron en la provincia y alcalde mayor de Son-
sonate, sobre que muchas pueblos de indios han pedido
deferia de tributos. . .y ayudado algunos de vecinos de
dicha ciudad y al reparo de la iglesia de ella.

1671, Agosto 16 EL SALVADOR

San Salvador

1671: A1.24-10208-1564:308. Parish templo of Ciudad de
San Salvador suffered during temblores in 1671.

1671: Al. 1-4-1(3). Autos tramitados por el alcalde mayor de
los provincias de San Salvdor y de San Miguel, con
motivo de la ruina habida en San Salvador el 16 de
Agosto de 1671.

1674: A 1.23- 1520:28. Real Cedula. Pidese a la Audiencia in-
formes circunstanciados de las danos sufridos en la
Ciudad de San Salvador debido al Terremoto del 16 de
Agosto de 1671 y las perdidas como consecuencia,
ademas, de la eruption del volcan inmediato a dicha
ciudad.

1674: Guatemala 189. Sobre uiniendo tan grandes temblores
de tierra, y terremotos, causados de hauesse reuentado
un volcan, que esta inmediato a ella, que no quedo
templo, ni casa, que no sea ruinase y cayese y que las
que no cayeron, quedar un inabitables y sin de
provecho, cuyo suceso ocasiono aquellos mas vecinos,
se retirasen a sus estancias, y a los pueblos de los in-

73

dios. cf. also Guatemala 209.

1677 (?) CHIAPAS

Ciudad Real (Las Casas)

1721: Guatemala 309. Notes repair of Ciudad Real cathe-
dral in 1677 in context that suggests quakes were
causal of damage.

1678, Agosto GUATEMALA

Pacaya/Fuego (author does not distinguish between)

ca. 1699: Fuentes y Guzman 1932:1:262. No menos por el
mes de Agosto del ano de 1678 volvio a bramar
por muchos dias lanzando grandes llamas de fuego,
y mucho y espeso humo, con grandes es-
tremecimientos de tierra que imitaba a un lento
temblor continuado, y condensan dose del
frecuente huma aquella pavorosa nube. . .(further
description given).

1687, Marzo 26 GUATEMALA

Pacaya/Fuego (author does not distinguish between)

ca. 1699: Persistencia de los dias, pero las llamas de fuego, y
el retumbo fue mucho mayor, y el nubarron de
humo mucho mas extendido, y espeso tanto que ex-
tendido sobre el surdeste, y el nordeste, tenia asom-
brado el sol con su interposition hasta la hora de
las once del dia, que se elevaba y propagaba la
nube. Fuentes y Guzman 1932:1:262.

1689, Febrero 12 = 2 temblores (11 AM & 11 PM) (Santa
Eulalia) GUATEMALA

San Pedro Huertas (El Tesorero)

1689: Al. 10.3-31270-4046. Los alcaldes del pueblo de San
Pedro indican que con el temblor del 12 de Febrero,
quedo arruinado el templo y piden ayudar para
reconstruirlo.
Parroquia de San Sebastian de la Ciudad (de Guatemala)

1690: Guatemala 905. Terremoto ruined iglesia.
Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658.

1689, Febrero 23 GUATEMALA

74

Antigua

1689: Guatemala 180.

1702, Agosto 4 (Santo Domingo) GUATEMALA

Antigua

1773, Septiembre 1: Guatemala 661. En que exhalo, y vom-
ito tanto fuego, humo, yceniga este volcan con horrosos
libramidos que obscureciendo la luz del sol, aun siendo
las nueve del dia, fue necessario ensenderse luces como
se fuese de noche.

1702, Agosto 14 EL SALVADOR

Asuncion Ahuachapa

1702: A1.24-10217-1573:128. Templo ruined by terremoto of
14 de Agosto.

1702 NICARAGUA

Masaya

1739: A 1.25 (5)-383-42. Terremotos arruinado iglesia en ano
de 1702.

1703 (?) GUATEMALA

Cubulco

1703, 31 de Marzo: A1.24-10217-1573:273. RP para que de
los bienes de comunidad del pueblo de Santiago
Cubulco, jurisdiction de Verapaz, se les de las can-
tidad de 600 pesos, para la obra de la capilla mayor,
arruinada por temblores.

1705, Febrero 1 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658.

Volcan ceniza entre nueve o diez de la manana.
1773: Guatemala 661 cf. for further detail.

1709, Octubre 14 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658. Rios de fuego que vomito el volcan.

1712, Diciembre 14 EL SALVADOR

Nuestra Senora Candelaria Ostuma

75

1712: A 1.24- 10224- 1580: 187. Templo destroyed by temblor

on 14th of diciembre of 1712.
Santa Lucia Sacatecoluca

1712: A 1.24- 10224- 1580: 190. Templo destroyed by temblor

de 14 de diciembre.

1714, Mayo 15 CHIAPAS

Santiago Amatenango

1 7 1 4: A 1 .24- 1 0225- 1 58 1 :540. Church reconstruction.

1715 EL SALVADOR

San Vicente

1715: A 1-3 1190-4043. El Ayuntamiento de San Vicente ex-
pone que con motivo de un terremoto muchos
pobladores han desamparado la Villa y pide sean obli-
gados a retornar.

1717, Agosto 22 GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658. Uno de los volcanes voracos llauas de
fuego y humo.

1717, Agosto 28 EL SALVADOR/GUATEMALA

San Pedro Metapas

1774: Guatemala 660. Saw flames in the night.
Antigua

1718, Junio 28:Guatemala. Volcanes que empezaron el dia
27 de Agosto hasta 29 de Septiembre Volcan del
Fuego.

1718: Guatemala 307. Testimonio de los autos sobre el fuego
que exsala dicho de los quatro bolcanes que circum-
balen esta Ciudad de Guatemala y terremotos
acaezidos la noche del dia del San Miguel con le
demas que contiene. 156 folios.

1717: Guatemala 305.

1717 GUATEMALA

Guazacapan

1718: A 1.1 0-3 1290-4047. Templo "ruinada con los
terremotos".
San Gaspar Vivar

76

1729: A 1.1 0.3-3 1299-4047. Su convento y la iglesia se cayo
con el terremoto del ano diez y siete.

1717, Septiembre 29 (San Miguel) GUATEMALA

Palin

1718: Al. 10.3-31289-4047. Fr. Ignacio Ceballero (O.P.),
certifica el mal estado en que quedo el templo del
pueblo de San Cristobal Amatitlan con los temblores
del 29 de Septiembre de 1717.

Santa Cruz Balanya

1719: A-53749-6057. Los alcaldes y regidores de pueblo de
Santa Cruz Balanya, piden se les exonere de dar cada
semana los cien indios de servicio, por estar ocupados
en la recostruccion de su iglesia parroquial destruida
con los terremotos de Septiembre de 1717.

San Andres Izapa

1718: Al. 10.3-31287-4047. El cura doctrinero de San An-
dres Izapa, indica que el templo de dicho pueblo quedo
arruinado con los temblores del 29 de Septiembre.

Santiago Zamora

1717: Al. 10.3-31284-4047. El comun del pueblo de Santiago
Zamora piden ayuda para reedificar el Templo,
destruido con los terremotos de Septiembre.

Chimaltenango, Comalapa, Tecpan, San Martin Xilotepeque
1776: Guatemala 659. Los temblores en el ano de 17,
llamados de San Miguel, no hicieron estrago alguno en
los pueblos de. . .

Antigua, Ciudad Vieja, Alotenango, Escuintla, Masagua, Misten,

Aguacatepeque, Alotenango, Comalapa, Palin.

1774: Guatemala 660. Quake felt as far as Paraje de Sabana
Grande. Also noted was San Sebastian Chaguat

Alotenango

1774: Guatemala 660. Se arruino tan del todo que no quedo
en pie cosa alguna de iglesia, convento, cabildo, ni casa
o hermita de adobe y cayeron aun muchas casas de
palizada,se hallan arranca dos de raiz, arboles gruesos
y mucha parte de las sencas de chicicaste de dicha
casas, y se halla en algunas partes hendida la tierra,
cosa que atribuyeron los naturales del dicho pueblo, y
otras personas que se hallaron presentes.

77

Antigua

1718: Guatemala 307. Testimonio sobre el lastimoso estras y
ruina que padecio la Ciudad de Guatemala con los ter-
remotos que experimento la noche del dia del Glorioso
Archangel San Miguel de veinte y nueve de Septiem-
bre del ano pasado de 1717 causado por sus vezino vol-
canes huiendo amenazando antes con espantozas
vorazes llamas de fuego y lo demas que expresa. 118
folios.

1717: Guatemala 309. Testimonio sobre el lastimoso extrage
y ruina que padecio esta Ciudad de Guatemala en los
terremotos que experimento la noche del dia del Glori-
oso Archangel San Miguel 29 de Septiembre de este
ano de 1717. Palin 54r, Escuintla 54r, Chaguit 56, dia-
gram 58r, Volcan Fuego 60r, Sabana Grande 61r, Vol-
can de Agua 62r, Aguacatepeque 63r.

1718: Guatemala 197. Further description.
Patzicia

1723: Guatemala 250. Ruinas acaecidas en las terremotos de
que han provevido las grandes diminuzion de tributos.
Siquinala, Santa Lucia Cotzumalhuapa, Acatenango

1773, 1 Sept.: Guatemala 661. Se noticiaron que su estrago y
perjuicio lo infirio a los pueblos de Ziquinala, Santa
Lucia y los de Acatenango por cuyo lado y barrancas
de las lajas havian vasado los arrollas de fuego
despidiendo tambien mucha ceniza. . .y en la del de
Acatenango arrancados grandes arboles y otras menos
de maiz pero esto se atribuyo a ser el suelo arenisco.

1717, Octobre 3 Guatemala

Antigua

1718, Junio 28: Guatemala 186. Rebento el Volcano de
Agua, hechando de si un considerable arroyo de cieno
amarillo y piedras, y despues prosiguieron los tem-
blores por todo el referido mes de Octubre aun que
parece haulan ya cesado.

1719, Marzo 5 EL SALVADOR

Ciudad de San Salvador, San Vicente, Apastepeque

1721, Abril 4: Guatemala 187. Guatemala 198 More than
150 temblores on 5 de Marzo 1719, most violent one in

78

hour of eclipse.

San Vicente, Ystepeque, San Salvador, Sacatecoluca, Cojutepeque

1719: Guatemala 309. Providencias en el lastimoso subseso

producido de los terremotos experimentados en la Ciu-

dad de San Salvador y demas de su jurisdiction. 166

folios.

San Salvador, San Vicente

1719, Sept 26: Guatemala 198. Temblores y terremotos
acaezido en la Villa de San Vizente de Austria y Ciu-
dad de San Salvador en los dias 4 y 6 de Marzo de
este ano.

San Miguel, San Salvador, San Vicente, Santa Ana, Apastepeque
1721: Guatemala 198. Seven persons died in Ciudad de San
Salvador y que los mas de los pueblos que dauan ar-
rasados con sus iglesias y que en el todo que daua
aquella ciudad asolada. Damage noted in San Miguel,
San Vincente, Santa Ana and Apastepeque.

1726 (?) NICARAGUA

Nuestra Senora del Viejo, Chinandega, Chichigalpa

1726: A 1.24- 10229- 1585: 175. Concediendo la cuarta parte
de los tributos para cubrir los gastos de la reconstruc-
tion de sus iglesias parroquiales, arruinada que fueron
por varios terremotos.

1730 EL SALVADOR

San Salvador

1801: Guatemala 942. Iglesia parroquial de San Salvador ar-
ruinada en 1730, (from context guess cause was
quake).

1733, Marzo 9 (San Francisco) HONDURAS

Intibuca, Tamba, Languira

1735: A1.11.25(4)-1428-123. Acaecieran asi en 1733 el pri-
mero viernes despues de la Feria 4a, cinerum en este
pueblo de Intibuca, como en el de San Francisco del
pueblo de Tamba, languira, tanta multitud de tem-
blors, unos mayores que otros que temiendo alguna
fatalidad sobre la gente, retablos, y la imagenes de
termine con los indios de ambos pueblos de sembrazar
los iglesias y celebrar en el patio de ellas los santos

79

sacramentos hasta el Domingo de ramos, que ya se
acabaron dichos temblores, los que dexaron ambos
yglecias aruinadas, y peligrosos siempre refeloso de
que no venga otro temblor, por cura Fr. Nicolas del
Castillo, 12 dias del mes de Marzo.

1733, Mayo GUATEMALA

Quetzaltepeque

1733: A 1.1 0.3-3 1300-4047. Templo reconstruct costs, also
other towns (names not given) in Provincia destroyed
by "los grandes terremotos que en dicha provincia"
decimos que con los grandes terremotos que en dicha
provincia (de Chiquimula de la Sierra) se han experi-
mentado, padecir ruina la iglesia del dicho nuestro
pueblo, en tal manera que quedo de el todo abatida por
el suelo, sin poderia aprobechar della fragmento al-
guno, quake happened before 13 Julio 1733 (date of
Ms.).

Santa Catarina Mita

1770: A 1.1 1-3540-175. Templo ruined for more than 40
years by "un memorable terremoto".

Chiquimula de la Sierra, Santa Elena, San Luis Xilotepeque,

Ipala Quetzaltepeque.

1736: Guatemala 230. Date of 1735 is given for reconstruc-
tion of churches in these towns. . .Toda ella arruinada
con varios terremotos. No date is given for the quakes
other than might be infered from "habia muchos anos
que estaba la iglesia sin acauar sus bobedas".

Chiquimula de la Sierra

1733: A3. 16- 17575-942. Que habia habido en aquel ter-
ritorio un terremoto tan grande que alcanzo en su im-
petuosa ejecucion a mal tratar su templo dejandolo en
el estado que si no se acudia a su alino estaba en pe-
ligro de caerse y hacerse mayor el dano. . .

1733, Mayo 22 (San Joaquin) GUATEMALA

San Juan Bautista Alotenango

1733: Al. 10.3-3 1303-4047. Fr. Juan de la Conception
(OFM) cura doctrinero de San Juan Bautista
Alotenango, certifica haber sufrido el templo con los

80

temblores habidos el dia de San Joaquin.

1736 NICARAGUA

Volcan Momotombo

after 1791: Archivo Museo Naval, Madrid Ms. 570 #6.
Eruption description.

1742, Agosto 10 GUATEMALA

San Antonio Suchitepequez, Santos Reyes Cuyutenango, San An-
dres Villa Seca

1743: Al. 10.3-31328-4048: Church danger of falling from
quake.
San Francisco Zapotitlan, Santiago Sambo

1743: Al. 11.25-42731-5034. Terremoto of Agosto 1742 ru-
ined churches of these towns.
Tacuilula

1743, Sept. 3: Al. 10.3-4048-31328. Iglesia arruinado por los
temblores, no quake date given.
Siquinala, Sn Andres (Villa Seca?), San Bartolome, Santa Ana
Mixtan, Escuintla, Tacuilula, Nestiquipaque

1743: A3. 16-2824-41031. Request exemption from paying
taxes, no reason visible (manuscript is in very poor
condition).

1742 NICARAGUA

Niquinohomo

1742: A1.11.25(5)-384-42. Maltradas por los terremotos.
1743: A1.11.25(5)-385-42. Con varios temblores que
apadecido sus paredes.
Masatepet, Jalapa, Mandagmo

1747: A1.11.25(5)-387-42. Las yglesias de los pueblos todos
maltrados con la continuation de varios terremotos.
San Juan Namotiua and Santa Catarina Namotibo, anexos al
Niquinojomo

1743: Al. 11.25-384-42. Los temblores lo maltrataron la
iglesia.

1743, Octubre 15 GUATEMALA

Chiquimula de la Sierra

1745: Al. 11.25-46573-5439. Un fuerte temblor de tierra se

81

arruinaron tanto sus paredes como el techo.

1747, Octubre 13 GUATEMALA

San Bartolome Mazatenango

1747: A 1.1 0.3-3 1339-4048. Acerca de la reedification del
templo de San Bartolomo Mazatenango, arruinado con
los temblores del 13 de Octubre de 1747.
San Bernardino Suchitepequez

1747: A 1.1 0.3-3 1338-4048. This temblor, which this manu-
script assigns to 1746, caused "major ruina".

1748, Marzo 15 EL SALVADOR

San Martin Perulapan

1748: A 1.1 1-6197-674. Church ruined by temblores en
Marzo.
San Martin Cojutepeque, San Martin Obispo

1748: Al.l 1.25-319-34. Church ruined by terremotos of 13
Marzo.

1750, Marzo 8 GUATEMALA

Soloma

1750: A 1.1 -55084-6087:4. La iglesia caerse de los continuous
temblores que ha hauido.

1751, Marzo 4 (Sn Casimiro) GUATEMALA

Guazacapan

1752: A3. 16-41 192-2833. Templo hurt in quake.
Comalapa

1758: Al.l 1.25-3284-163. Capilla mayor della con el tem-
blor a caecido el dia de San Casimiro, cuatro del
Marzo de. . .
San Felipe Jesus

1753: Al. 10.3-31353-4049. Terremoto del dia cuatro de
Marzo ruined church.
San Pedro Las Huertas

1751: A 1.1 0.3-3 1344-4049. El terremoto del dia 4 de Marzo
causo tanto estrago en la iglesia.
Antigua

1760: Guatemala 657. Guatemala 406 and Guatemala 725.
Damage to the Palacio.
Jalapa

82

1774: Guatemala 658. Quebranto la portada de la Iglesia.
Area between Jumay and Mataescuintla (Valle de Santa Rosa)

1774: Guatemala 660. Se dice haber parecido estremo por el
movimiento tan fuerte, que se advirtio de conformidad,
que se inclinaba notablemente el techado de las casas
hacia la tierra, pero en las paredes, que son adobe no
se experimento lesion.
Antigua

1775: Al- 17862-2362. Francisco Antonio de la Fuente, pide
se le de ayuda economica para la reedificacion de su
casa destruida durante los terremotos del 4 de Marzo.
Not seen.

1757, Octubre 4 (San Francisco) GUATEMALA

San Juan Alotenango

1758: A 1.1 1.25-2971-151. El temblor que sobre vino el dia
de San Francisco pasado deste presente ano, church
needs repairs.
Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658. Terremoto.
1765, Junio 2 (Santissima Trinidad) GUATEMALA

Chiquimula de la Sierra

1784: Al. 11.25-3570-176. Templo reconstruction costs.

1764: Guatemala 407.

1766: Guatemala 543. Hot sulfuric water comes out of ar-

royos and burns milpas totally.
1767: Guatemala 407. Terremoto acahecido la noche del dia
dos de Junio del 1765 que repitieron hasta el siguiente
mes, died 53 personas entre ellos el cura doctrinero,
uno de sus coadjutores, y el alcalde mayor Joseph
Antonio Ugarte (this last is wrong). Otros muy las-
timados y perdidone los mas de los edificios.
Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658. Que quando hayan causado algunan
corta ruina en algun solar o pared de los barrios, no
han merecido atencion estos sucessos.
Jalapa

1774: Guatemala 658. Se descompuso, y cayo alguna teja de
la iglesia.
Antigua (10:30 o 11:00 PM)

83

1774: Guatemala 658. Cuyo movimiento fue bien considera-
ble y terrible, pues a sus impulsos se tocaron los com-
panas de la Cathedral, sin que pueda ofrecerse la me-
nor duda; no causaron visible danos, y ruinas, pero
probablemente lastimarian en alguna parte dos
edificios, como se puede discurrir sin violencia.
Area between Jumay and Mataescuintla (about Xalapa), Valle de
Santa Rosa

1774: Guatemala 660. Aunque se experimento igualmente
(to San Casimiro quake) fuerte, y largo no causo otro
perjuicio, que el haberse desmoronado parte de una
loma tajada, que sirve de cerca al corral de esta
hacienda.
Alotepeque (today Conception de las Minas) (and also the Prov-
ince of Chiquimula)

1770, Julio 20: Guatemala 644. Al corregidor de Chiquimula
de la Sierra y trate con el prelado, y proponga los
medios de reparan los iglesias deterionadas de los ter-
remotos-e igualmente los minerales de San Joseph
Alotepeque totalmente perdidos.
Zacapa

1768: Cortes y Larraz relation. Serios estragos en la
poblacion.
Esquipulas

n.d.: A 1.2 1-3539- 175. Algunos perjuicios a iglesia parro-
quial, la casa del curato y el santuario del Senior.

1765, Octubre 24 CHIAPAS/GUATEMALA

Asuncion Solola

1765: Reconstruction del templo parroquial del pueblo de
Asuncion Solola, arruinado por los temblores de 24 de
Octubre. A 1.1 1.25-4065-201.
Corregimiento de Quetzaltenango

1765: A 1-47 176-5482. Informes rendidos por el corregidor
de Quetzaltenango, acerca de la ruina habida con mo-
tivo de los terremotos del 24 de Octubre 1765. Not
seen.
Corregimientos de Quesalthenango, Totonicapan y Ciudad Real
1776: Guatemala 659. Son recientes los temblores del ano de
sesenta y cinco que arrionanon la Provincia entera de
Chiquimula y parte de las de Quezalthenango, Totoni-

84

capan y Ciudad Real.

1765 NICARAGUA

Volcan Rincon de la Vieja

after 1791: Archivo Museo Naval, Madrid Ms. 570 #6.
Eruption description.

1772 (?) HONDURAS

Gualcha (en Gracias a Dios)

1772: A1.11.25(4)-361-42. Terremoto makes aperturas en
iglesia.

1772, Marzo 16 NICARAGUA

Nindiri

after 1792: Archivo Museo Naval, Madrid Ms. 570 #6.
Temblor.

1772, Julio 15 GUATEMALA

San Bartolome Mazatenango

1773: A 1-24792-28 12. Informe acerca del estado en que
quedo San Bartolome Mazatenango como con-
secuencia de los temblores habidos al 15 de Julio 1772.
Not seen.

1773, Mayo 31 hasta Junio 11 (FIRST SANTA MART A
QUAKES) GUATEMALA

Chiquimulilla

1828: B83. 13-25502- 1125:29. La municipalidad del pueblo
de Santa Cruz Chiquimulilla, certifica que el parroco
Pbro. Jose Gregorio Echegoyu se intereso por la
reedificacion del templo parroquial, el cual estaba en
ruinas debido a los temblores de "Santa Marta" y a
los arboles que habian crecido sobre su medio canon,
certified that church could not be repaired.

Soloma

1954: Monografia del Huehuetenango (Adrian Recinos).
Soloma habia sufrido los efectos de los terremotos de
Santa Marta.

1773, Julio 29 hasta 30 (SECOND AND MAJOR SANTA
MARTA QUAKES) GUATEMALA

85

La Ermita (Valle de Guatemala)

1773: Al. 10.3-6523-3 13. Terremoto this July ruined church.
San Martin Jilotepeque

1774: A 1.1 1.25-3290-163. Los indigenas de San Martin
Jilotepeque solicitan ayuda economica para la recon-
struction del templo parroquial, arruinado con los sis-
mos de 29 de Julio de 1773.
Patzicia

1777: Al. 11.25-3296-163. Church ruined by temblores del
dia de Julio del ano 1773; also see Guatemala 562 and
Guatemala 661 (the last of which says total ruina asi
en este pueblo).
San Agustin Sumpango

1774: Al. 11.25-3291-163. Los indigenas del pueblo de San
Agustin Sumpango, solicitan fondos para la reedifica-
cion del templo parroquial, arruinado con los temblores
del 29 de Julio de 1773; (cf. also Guatemala 661).
Antigua (from 3:30 PM of the 29th and/or to 9AM of next day)
1773, Agosto 2: Guatemala 657.
1774: Guatemala 658.

1773, Agosto 1: Papeles de Correos 90. Raining at same time
as quakes.
Jalapa (en tarde y noche de 29 de Julio sintio dos de ellos particu-
larmente fuerte)

1774: Guatemala 658.
San Raymundo de las Casillas

1779: Guatemala 562. Ruined church.
San Juan Sacatepequez

1779: Guatemala 562. Que quedo maltraltada iglesia.
Jocotenango

1779: Guatemala 562. Que no esta aun concluida y no deja
de tener quebran toda sin servible la boveda (de igle-
sia). Cf. Guatemala 661.
Tecpan Guatemala

1779: Guatemala 661. Ruina general de los terremotos (10
Die. 1773). Guatemala 562. Iglesia quedaron igual-
mente destruida.
Patzun

1779: Guatemala 562. Iglesia quedaron igualmente destruida.
Santa Ana Chimaltenango

1773, Die. 6: Guatemala 661. Quebrado el terremoto. Does

86

not say if of Julio.
San Andres Acatenango

1793: Al. 11.25-3318-164. Temblor of 1773 ruined church.
San Juan Amatitlan

1776: A 1.1 0.3-3 1360-4049. Church ruined in 1773.
San Lucas Sacatepequez

1780: Al.l 1.25-301 1-153. Church ruined by los terremotos.
Santiago Sacatepequez

1782: Al. 10.3-31368-4045. Church totally ruined by los
temblores of 1773.
Comalapa

1776: Guatemala 659. Quake damage from 1773 quake.
Guatemala 562. Damage from Julio 29 quake.
Ostuncalco

1774, Junio: Guatemala 661. En el pueblo de Ostuncalco se
cuentan difuntos cuatro mil indios y ninos diez no mas
hace como un mes y se va estendiendo en las Alcaldias
de Totonicapan y Quezaltenango como tambien se ha
padecido en algunos pueblos. . .han fallecido muchos
indios. . .Context is quakes but does not explicitly
state is cause of deaths.
Area between Jumay and Mataescuintla (about Xalapa, Valle de
Santa Rosa)

1774: Guatemala 660. Se aseguara que se sintieron, como
seis, o siete, pero no se noto movimiento violento ni es-
trano, aunque si bastantemente largo sin causa en los
edificios ni demas oficinas detrimento alguno.
Petapa, Mixco, Pinula

1777: Guatemala 559. Churches quedaron arruinadas o tan
maltradas, que si no se componen estan inservibles.
Provincias de Chimaltenango y AM Sacatepequez

1779: Guatemala 562. States that all churches in these prov-
inces ruined by 1773 quakes.

1773, Septimebre 7 {THIRD SANTA MARTA
QUAKE) GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774: Guatemala 658.

1773, Septiembre 16 HONDURAS

Omoa

87

1773, Octubre 24: Guatemala 450. Que el 16 de Septiembre
se experimento un recio temblor, seguido por la noche
de un dilubio y viento tan fuertes, que hasta el dia
siguiente estubo inundada aquella poblacion, . . .salio
de madre el Rio Grande rompiendo la corriente un
llano de 400 baras de largo y 200 de ancha, y lleban-
dose una quebrada, de que resulto ba inundacion-
desbarato alguna obra nueva del Castillo; se arruino la
contaduria y unos almacenes con varias casas del
pueblo; destruyo las cosechas y platanares. . .con la
continuation de lluvias pudiera causar muchos danos.

1773, Diziembre 13 (FOURTH SANTA MARTA QUAKE &
SECOND IN FORCE) GUATEMALA

Antigua

1774, Febrero 7: Guatemala 830.

1774, Octubre HONDURAS

Comayagua

1776: Guatemala 659. Los (quakes) del ano de 74 que ar-
razaron a Comayagua y su cercanias.
Comayagua, Legamani, Ajuterique

1774, Die. 4: Guatemala 450. 9 AM or a little after was first,
the second temblor at 3 PM. Rain with quakes.
Comayagua

1774-75: Guatemala 469. (nothing new).
Guatemala 410.

1775 HONDURAS

1798: A1.11.25(4)-384-43. Cathedral ruined by temblores of

1775.

1775, Julio 2 GUATEMALA

Amatitlan

1775: Guatemala 662. 84 folios. Testimonio de los autos
causados sobre la reventasion del Bolcan nombrado los
humitos ymmediato al pueblo de San Juan Amatitan
en fuego y piedra que despide por tres bocas que se
abrieron la noche del dia 2 de Julio de este ano de

1775.

Palin

1776: Guatemala 558. Bolcan de Pacaya arruinando todas
las casas, y destruyendo sus sementeras, y haciendas.

1775: Guatemala 558. Que con la ocasion de haver reventado
un cerro inmediato al oriente de nuestro pueblo
inclinado hacia el sur brotando fuego, piedras, ceniza,
y arena, se ha inundado todo nuestro territorio de
modo que se cayeron todas las casas de los indios, a
exception de la Casa del Cura, y de la Yglesia del
pueblo las que sin duda caeran, por que como las are-
nas, y cenizas continuar sin intermision de mas de los
graves terremotos que hubo, se detienen las aguas
lluvias en los texados con que se ha causado y cauzan
muchas goteras, y la ruina del resto de las casas.
Volcan Pacaya

1775, Julio 31: Guatemala 450. En la arruinada cuidad se
obserbaron en el dia de la rebentaron 7 to 8 temblors
(3 July 1775), y repetidos antes, y despues de ella, con
aquella especie de ruido subterraneo, o erbidero, que
tanto consterno en la ruina pasada. Context for Mapas
y Pianos Guatemala 219bis and 315.

1775, Julio 16. Real Academia de Historia, Coleccion
Papeles Varios de America, ff. 543-552.

1775, Agosto 31: Guatemala 557. Participa que por los
avisos que ha tenido hasta el 12 de mismo, consta que
en el Volcan de Pacaya, continuan sus bocas hechando
considerable portion de fuego; que sigue la frecuencia
de retumbos; que el humo es exorbitance; que la
piedra, y arena que continuamente expele, la dirige
hacia la costa, cayendo, como aguacero en el pueblo de
Palin; que se han abierto en el citado cerro tres bocas
mas, y se han cerrado otras con la piedra, de cuyo
numero no se hace expecificacion; y que la principal
esta permanente; subsistiendo sin incremento, ni
diminution el rio de fuego que gira al sur.

1775: Biblioteca Colombina, Sevilla.
Another description of eruption.

1775, Agosto 1: Guatemala 877. Description of eruption
from 2 Julio 1775 on.

1776, Marzo 30 e 31 GUATEMALA/EL SALVADOR

1776: A 1-4466-62. Autos acerca de las medidas que debian

89

ser tomadas con motivo de la ruina de San Salvador.
Estos temblores fueron sentidos en Guatemala. Not
seen. Probably error for quake of 30 & 31 of May
1776.
1779: Guatemala 562. Implies that 1776 quakes felt in the
provinces of Escuintla and Chiquimulilla. States that
effected entire province of Sonsonate and San
Salvador.

1776, Mayo 30 e 31 EL SALVADOR

Ciudad de San Salvador

1802: Guatemala 908. Iglesia arruinada de resultas del ter-
remoto acaecido el ano de 1776.
Provincias de Sonsonate, San Salvador y sus adjacentes

1776: Guatemala 659. Los terremotos del presente ano de
76, que desolaros las provincias de Sonsonate, San Sal-
vador y sus adjacentes.
Ciudad de San Salvador, Nexapa, Apopa, Quezaltepeque, Cox-
utepeque, San Vicente

1776: Guatemala 450. 11:15 AM 1st quake until 6PM May
31st last quake. Mud flow from small volcano near San
Salvador City. Also effected Comayagua, Sonsonate,
Izalco.

1776, Julio 6 EL SALVADOR

Ciudad de San Salvador

1776, Diz. 9: Guatemala 450. Un temblor tan grande que
habia acavado de arruinar todos los templos, y casas.

1776, Noviembre 15. EL SALVADOR

Ciudad de San Salvador

1776, Diz. 9: Guatemala 450. Con fecha de 15 de Noviembre
ultimo que a las dos de la manana del mismo dia acon-
tecieron dos formidables temblores con los quales dicen
acabo aquella pobre cuidad de experimentar su total
ruina, de manera que varios edificios caieron del
todo. . .no podian darme noticias de los pueblos de
aquellas immediciones, porque no cesaban los
temblores.

1778, Febrero 3 EL SALVADOR

90

San Salvador

1801: Guatemala 942. Iglesia parroquial de San Salvador ar-
ruinada con el terremoto del 3 de Febrero 1778.

1780, Septiembre 21 (San Matheo) GUATEMALA

Ciudad de Guatemala, Antigua

1781, 19 Abril: Guatemala 451. El dia de San Matheo, y
veinte y uno del proximo pasado mes cerca de las doce
de la noche se sinuio en esta capital un violento ter-
remoto de trepidation, que duro minuto, y medio,
desperto con el malor susto a los que ia dormian, y
puso a todos en grande consternation. Ni en fabricas,
ni en cosa alguna ha dexido la menor senal de su fu-
erza, y poder, a diferencia del pueblo de la Vieja Gua-
temala, en donde fue mucho mayor su impetu, y der-
ribo algunos fragmentos, que se concervaban en pie de
sus antiguos edificios. Con algunos experiencias de esta
se conseguira totalmente la debida conformidad a la
justificada resolution de SM en la traslacion, cara
written 6 de Octubre 1780.

1784 (Los Santos Reyes) GUATEMALA

Coban

1792: A 1.1 1.25-3723-181: Pilares of church need rebuilding
since temblor de Los Santos Reyes, speaks of many
temblores here in past but church survived since six-
teenth century.
San Cristobal Verapaz, Santa Cruz Verapaz

1785: Guatemala 603. Arruino iglesia por terremoto de dia
del Reyes.

1785 (?) HONDURAS

Cucuyagua

1785: A1.11.25(4)-368-42. Church damaged with motion
of land.

1787 EL SALVADOR

Usulutan, Santa Maria, Ereguaiquin, Tiquilizco

1787: Guatemala 971. Lost entire crop con la eruption de el
volcan de San Miguel cuyas cenizas y escorias
destruyen de el todo las sementerias de los cuatro pue-

91

bios comprehendidos en aquel partido.

1791, Enero 24 NICARAGUA

Volcan Telica

after 1791: Archivo Museo Naval, Madrid Ms. 570 #6.

1791, Marzo 16 GUATEMALA

San Pedro Sacatepequez

1791: A 1.1 1.25-4974-200. Los nativos de San Pedro Sacat-
epequez, de la jurisdiccion de Quezaltenango, exponen
el estado ruinoso de su iglesia, debido a los temblores
del 16 de Marzo.

San Marcos

1791: A 1.1 1.25-4975-200. Instancia presentada por el cura
de San Pedro Sacatepequez, jurisdiccion de Quetzalte-
nango, informando del estado en que se encuentra la
iglesia del Barrio de San Marcos con motivo de los ter-
remotos de 16 de Marzo de 1791.

Cuilapa

1791: A 1. 5-20007- 1105:folio 162. Garita de Cuilapa ha mal-
tratado el texado de ella con los temblores en 16 y 17
de Marzo proximo pasada y que para la continuation
de goteras que experimenta con las aguas.

San Cristobal Cucho, San Antonio Sacatepequez

1791: A 1-4972-200. Diligencias relativas para determinar los
dafio que acaciono el, temblor del 16 de Marzo de
1791, en los temblos [sic] de los pueblos de San Cris-
tobal Cucho e San Antonio Sacatepequez. Not seen.

San Pedro Sacatepequez e Barrio de San Marcos

1791: A 1-4973-200. Orden para que se detallen los danos y
necesidades habidas con motivo del temblor de 16 del
Marzo en San Pedro Sacatepequez y Barrio de San
Marcos en Quetzaltenango. Not seen.
1791: Al-3982-137. Diligencias practicadas por el corregidor
de Quetzaltenango para terminar los daiios ocasion-
ados por los temblores del 16 de Marzo de 1791 en
San Pedro y San Marcos Sacatepequez. Not seen.

1795, Diciembre 29 GUATEMALA

Chiantla

1805: Al. 24-55307-6091:93. RP. Concedese al pueblo de

92

Chiantla, 150 pesos de los fondos de bienes de
comunidades de indios, para cubrir el costo de la
reedificacion del templo parroquial. Esta iglesia estaba
danada a consecuenca de los temblores habidos el 29
de Diciembre de 1795.
Concepcion Huehuetenango

1805: A3. 16-4923-247. El comun del pueblo de Concepcion
Huehuetenango solicita exoneration de tributos por es-
tar ocupados en la reconstruction del templo parro-
quial, arruinado por los temblores que hubo hacia diez
anos.

1798, Febrero 3 EL SALVADOR

Ciudad de San Salvador

1803, Enero 31: Guatemala 415. Terremoto en 3 de Febrero
1798 destruyendo parte de lo edificado iglesia parro-
quial dejo al vecindario imposibilitado de continuar (to
use).

1798, Febrero 27: Guatemala 843. Informe sobre las fuertes
terremotos en San Salvador el dia 3 del Febrero a las
dos y quarto de la tarde se sinteo un terremoto tan fu-
erte que carecede de exemplar, segun me ha aseguardo
algunos de estos vecinos antiguos, que alcanzaran la
ultima ruina de las varias que aqui se han experi-
mentado y con este motivo han padecido mucho las
edificias habiendose arruinado totalmente la iglesia
parroquial y otras. Felt also in San Miguel, description
of adjacent volcano (near San Salvador) after quake.

1798, Julio 2 (?) GUATEMALA

Lanquin

1799: Al.l 1.25-3732-182. Church ruined on July 2, 1798, no
reason given for destruction.

1798, Noviembre 3 EL SALVADOR

Ciudad de San Salvador

1802: Guatemala 908. El ultimo terremoto en 3 de Noviem-
bre de 1798 que dejo arruinada la mayor parte de la
obra (de iglesia).

1798: Gazeta de Guatemala 2.

1798 NICARAGUA

93

1798: Gazeta de Guatemala 2.

1800, Agosto 14 EL SALVADOR

Chinameca and Tecapa

1800, Sept. 30: Guatemala 921. Se le permite regresarse a su
curato por tener que reedificar aquellas
iglesias que han padecido ruino 1800 "fue
cierto que el dia 14 del mes de Agosto hubo
un temblar de tierra muy grande, el que
quebro por varias partes nuestras iglesias del
indicado pueblo de Chinameca y Tecapa su
anexo."

1803 EL SALVADOR

Volcan Izalco

1803: Gazeta de Guatemala 7.

1811, Mayo 23 GUATEMALA

Guatemala City

1811, Sept. 3: Guatemala 417. Informe sobre la necesidad
con se procedio a reparar el cuartel de
Dragones de esta capital, que sufrio gran de-
trimento por un terremoto el 23 del Mayo ul-
timo consequencia de la mala construcion del
edificio.

1815, Agosto 20 EL SALVADOR

Ciudad de San Salvador

1815: A 1.1 -42-4 (3). Informe acerca de que el 20 de Agosto,
a las siete y media de la noche, la ciudad de
San Salvador fue con movida por templores.

1816, Junio 2 GUATEMALA

Santa Lucia Utatlan

1816: Al. 11.25-8194-393. Church ruined entirely on June 2,
1816.

1816, Julio 22 and 21 (Santa Maria Magdalena)GUATEMALA

Aguacatan e Chalchitan

1816: A 1.1 1-56865-61 19. Las justicias de los pueblos de
Aguacatan y de Chalchitan piden del alcalde mayor de

94

Totonicapan y Huehuetenango fondos de sus bienes de
comunidad para cubrir los gastos que ocasione le
reedificacion de la iglesia arruinada por los temblores
del 21 y 22 de Julio 1816.

Todos Santos Cuchumatan

1817: A 1.1 1-56688-61 18. Instancia del comun del pueblo de
Todos Santos Cuchumatan ante el alcalde mayor de
Totonicapan y Huehuetenango, sobre que se les pro-
porcionen medios para reconstruir el templo parro-
quial, danado por los temblores del 21 y 22 de Julio de
1816.

Chiantla

1816: Al.l 1-56730-61 18. El Pbro. Jose Ceferino Aguilar,
cura del pueblo de Chiantla, pide al alcalde mayor
ayuda del fondo de comunidades para la reconstruc-
tion de los cuatro templos de su curato, arruinados por
los temblores habidos en Julio de 1816. In 1769 the
towns of this parish were: Chiantla, Aguacatan,
Chalchitan, Todos Santos Cuchumatan, and San Mar-
tin Cuchumatan. Cf. also A3-53258-2801.

Concepcion Huehuetenango

1816: Al.l 1-56663-6118. Sobre la reconstruction de las
iglesias de los pueblos del curato de Concepcion
Huehuetenango, dafiadas con los temblores habidos el
22 de Julio 1816. In 1769 the towns of this parish
were: San Lorenzo, San Sebastian, Santa Isabel, San
Juan, Santiago, San Pedro and Santo Domingo.

Huehuetenango

1817: Al.l 1.25-8094-388. El comun de Huehuetenango
solicita fondos para reedificar el templo parroquial ar-
ruinado con los templores del 22 de Julio de 1816.

Santa Maria Joyabaj

1817: A3. 1-22525- 1344:6. Sobre autorizar del fondo de com-
munidades del pueblo de Santa Maria Joyabaj, los
fondos necessario para reconstruir el templo de dicho
pueblo, arruinado por los terremotos habidos el 21 de
Julio de 1816.

San Andres Sacabaja

1816: Al.l 1.25-8192-392. El temblor del dia 21 del corriente
por la noche, y el del 22 a las 8 del dia ruined church,

95

need to rebuild "from floor".
San Cristobal Totonicapan

1817: A 1.1 1-56692-61 18. Auto tramitado por el comun del
pueblo de San Cristobal Totonicapan, sobre la asigna-
cion de fondos de bienes de comunidades, para la
reedificacion del templo de dicho pueblo, danado con
los terremotos del 21 y 22 de Julio de 1816.
San Miguel Totonicapan

1817: A3. 1-22532-1344:5. Sobre la aprobacion de 2500 pesos
para la reconstruction del templo del pueblo de San
Miguel Totonicapan, arruinado por el temblor habido
el 22 de Julio de 1816. See also A3-5191-253 and
Al.73-56707-6118.
San Andres Xecul

1816: Al. 1-56660-6 118. El comun del pueblo de San Andres
Xecul pide se los proporcionen fondos de sus
comunidades para reedificar el templo parroquial
danado con los temblores habidos el 22 de Julio.
Guatemala City

1817: Guatemala 497. Two quakes, at 12 AM on the 21st
and at 9:30 AM on the 22nd.
Totonicapan, Quetzaltenango, Ciudad Real (San Cristobal Las
Casas), Provincia de Verapaz

1817: Guatemala 497.
Soloma y seis anexos (Ixcoy, Santa Eulalia, Istatan, San Sebas-
tian Coatan, San Miguel Acatan)

1817: Guatemala 497.
Santiago Momostenango

1816: A 1.1 1.25-27459-2929. Church ruined by temblores of
July 20, 1816.
Guatemala City

1816, 3 Octubre: Guatemala 496. La noche del 21 de Julio
de este ano como a las doce de ella se sintio en esta
capital un terremoto con explosion tan fuerte que puso
en consternation al vecindaro, y que no obstante, solo
que fue precursor de otro mas fuerte y de mas dura-
tion que se experimente a las nueve y media de la ma-
nana del dia siguiente 22. . .
Santa Cruz Verapaz

1818: A 1.1 1.25-7982-384. Fr. Francisco Arriaza, parroco de
Sn Cristobal Cajcoj, expone ser necesaria la recon-

96

struccion del templo de Santa Cruz de Santa Elena fil-
ial de dicha parroquia (este templo quedo arruinado
por el terremoto de Santa Magdalena, del ano 1816).
Alcalde Mayor de Totonicapan e Huehuetenango

1816: A 1-56670-6 118. Informe acerca de los temblores
habidos el 22 de Julio y que causaron graves danos en
varios pueblos. Not seen. cf. Also Al-8085-388. Not
seen.
Santa Catalina Ixtahuacan

1819: Al. 11.25-8202-393. Pasado Julio el temblor del dia de
Santa Maria Magdalena se amino enteramente la
yglesia.
San Antonio Ilotenango

1821: A3-5230-254. El alcalde del pueblo solicita exonera-
tion del pago de tributos, aduciendo como razon los
danos causados por los ultimos temblores. Not seen.
Malacatan

1954: Monografia del Huehuetenango. Arruinada la Iglesia.

1818 GUATEMALA

Quetzaltenango

1818, Marzo 18: Guatemala 498. Refers to 21/22 Julio 1816
eruption and says this came after it. A basically vol-
canic eruption, with quake, caused mayor estrago en
sus edificios. Eruption de un cerro que se halla a una
legua de la poblacion.

1820, Febrero GUATEMALA

Almolonga (Provincia de Quetzaltenango)

1820, Marzo 20: A 1.1 1.25-8152-391. Los frecuentes tem-
blores originados de la rebentazon del volcan que
tenemos a la vista y muy cercano al pueblo de Al-
molonga perjirdicaron bastante los iglesia de dicho
pueblo, cuyos perjicios repare entonces con mis cortos
arbitrios; pero los ultimos temblores del mes pasado
me han echo desmayor. Estos quasi arruinaron el techo
de la iglesia.

1821, Julio 6 GUATEMALA

San Mateo Salama

1821: A 1.1 -57284-6931. Minuta indicandole que los vecinos

97

del pueblo de San Mateo Salama descaban reedificar
el templo parroquial arruinado por los temblores
habidos en 1820 y que como carecian de fondos, solic-
itaban autorizacion para tomar dondos de cofradias.
1821: Al. 11.25-7997-384. El ayuntamiento constitucional de
San Mateo Salama, propone un plan de arbitrios para
reedificar el templo parroquial, arruinado por los tem-
blores habido el 6 de Junio.

1821, 6 Mayo GUATEMALA

San Pedro Jocopilas

1821: B3. 6-985-47. Minuta solicitando informe sobre si exis-
ten fondos para reedificar el templo parroquial de San
Pedro Jocopilas y casa conventual, destruido por un
terremoto.
Alcaldia Mayor de Totonicapan

1821: A 1-24675-2806. Informe rendido por el alcalde mayor
de Totonicapan, acerca de los danos ha idos con mo-
tivo de los temblores. Not seen.

1830, Abril 21 GUATEMALA

Amatitlan

1831: B85. 1-26530-1 150: El Pbro. Jose Maria Mijangos,
cura de la parroquia de Amatitlan, ante el Jefe del Es-
tado de Guatemala, pide ayuda economica para recon-
struir el templo y la casa parroquial, arruinado por los
terremotos del ano 1830. See also Bl 1-600067-
2553:folio 6, (of abril 21-1830).

Escuintla

1841: Bl 19.3-59094-2544:1. El corregidor de Escuintla la
solicitud del parroco y vecinos de la cabecera, contra
ida que de parte del gobierno se les ayude para reedifi-
car el templo parroquial, arruinado por el terremoto
habido en 1830. Not seen.

Petapa

1830, Abril 21: Bl-60067-2553:folio 8. Informa el alcalde de
la municipalidad de Petapa, que a las cuatro de la
madrugada, a mentaron los temblores, originando la
caida del templo parroquial, casas parroquiales, el
cabildo y muchas de particulares. Not seen.

Amatitlan, Petapa (San Miguel), Palin

98

1830, Abril 22: B95-32577-1398. Juan Manuel Rodriquez
comissionarle para que pasara a los pueblos de Ama-
titlan, Petapa y Palin a informarse si las circuntancias
en que se encontraba el vecindario como consecuencia
del pasaso terremoto y temblores que estaban
sacudiendo aquella zona. Not seen.

Guatemala City

1830, Abril 22: Bl-60067-2553:folio 17. El jefe politico del
departamento de Guatemala, informa a la Secretaria
General del Gobierno, de las medidas tomadas para
mantener el orden en la capital y sugeria se pidiera la
colaboracion de las fuerzas militares, para perseguir a
los ladrones, que podrian aprovecharse la confusion
causada por los temblores.

Santa Ines Petapa

1830, Abril 23: Informa el Secretario de la municipalidad
que el terremoto del dia 21 destruyo el templo parro-
quial, casa consistorial y varias casas de personas par-
ticulares. Bl-60084-2555:folio 58.

Amatitlan

1830, Abril 23: Bl-58506-2539:folio lr. Juan Manuel Rodri-
guez, comisario por el gobierno para inspeccionar los
danos causados por los temblores en Amatitlan, in-
forma que aun continuaba temblores.

Hacienda El Rosario

1830, Abril 26: B 1-45047- 1959. Parte relativo a que las
casas de la hacienda El Rosario, en jurisdiction de
Amatitlan, perteneciente a los bienes de
temporalidades, Quedaron arruinadas por los ultimas
temblores. Not seen.

Villa Nueva, San Miguel e Santa Ines Petapa, Amatitlan e Palin
1830, Abril 28: Bl-50121-2405. El Lie. Juan Manuel Rodri-
guez informa los danos causados por los terremotos.
Not seen.

Palin

1830: Bl 1-501 19-2404. El alcalde lo de la municipalidad in-
forma al jefe de estado que desde principio de Abril
eran constantes los temblores siendo necesario el
"descargo" de los techos del templo parroquial, casas
de cabildo, casa parroquial, etc. Not seen.

Amatitlan, Palin e otras

99

1830, Abril 24: B-28866-1 189. Circular informandoles que el
dia 21 se arruinaron los pueblos de Amatitlan y Petapa
y algunos otros de las mediciones de la capital, a causa
de los grandes y frecuentes temblores y que desde el
mismo dia han sido numerosisimos en esta capital. Not
seen.
Volcan Pacaya

1830, Abril 22: B-32578-1398. El poder ejecutivo del estado
comisionado los senores Coronel Nicolas Raul y Faus-
tino Padilla, para que pasen a la zona immediata del
Volcan de Pacaya y reconozcan los danos causados por
los ultimos temblores. Not seen.

1830, Abril 29: B95-32576-1398:folio 1. El poder ejecutivo
del Estado de Guatemala comisiona a los senores Co-
ronel Nicolas Raul, teninte Coronel Manuel Jonama,
Antonio Jose Coitho, para que pasen a reconocer el
Volcan de Pacaya y el cerro de Petapa, nombrado El
Pelon. Not seen.

1830, Mayo 11: B-32576-1398:folio 4. El senor Antonio Jose
Cofino informa al secretario general de gobierno haber
ascendido al volcan de Pacaya y al cerro El Pelon, en
union del Coronel Nicolas Raul, encontrando que el
primero presentado derrumbres y grientas y el segundo
zonas que monstraban desniveles, producidos por
hundimientos.
Guatemala City

1830, Mayo 21: B-28870-1 189. Circular informandoles ha-
ber returnado a la Ciudad de Guatemala, desde el
pueblo de Jocotenango, la Asamblea Legislativa y el
Poder Ejecutivo del Estado, por haber cesado los tem-
blores que se iniciaron desde el 21 de Abril anterior.

1830, Junio 9: B-501 18-2404. El arquitecto Santiago Marqui
informa haber inspeccionado el altar mayor de la Cat-
edral, dictando las provincias necesarias para
aseguararlo, en vista del estado en que quedo debido a
los temblores de Mayo ultimo.

Amatitlan. Pinula, San Miguel Petapa, Santa Ines Petapa

1831, Diciembre 15: B-29197-1 194. Que a los pueblos que
fueron danados por los temblores del 21 de Abril de
1830 queden exonerados del pago de la contribution.

100

Cuilapa

1830: Bl 19.2-56593-2513. Pasa al consejo representative la
solicitud presentada por la municipalidad de Cuilapa,
relativa a que los vecinos de los Valles inmediatos,
rindan trabajo personas para reedificar el templo par-
roquial, arruinada por los temblores habidos el dia 3
de Mayo.

101

APPENDIX

Call Numbers for additional AGCA Church Reconstruction Man-
uscripts not seen by L.H. Feldman

San Andres Acatenango. 1799. Al. 11-3339-165

Ciudad Vieja. 1805 Al. 10.3-6621-322. 1780. Al. 10.3-4576-76.

San Juan Alotenango. 1818. A3. 1-22553-1346.

Palin. 1812. Al. 11.25-7641-370. 1832. Bl 19.4-60170-

2561:35.

1837. Bl 19.3-58755-2542.

Amatitlan. 1672. A3. 12-40062-2775. A3. 12-42184-2886.
1811. Al. 11.25-7619-370.

Santiago Atitlan. 1735. Al. 10.3-31308-4047. Al. 10.3-31310-

4047.

Santa Cruz Balanya. 1799. Al. 11.25-3339-165.

Coban. 1741. Al. 10.3-31319-4048. 1794. Al. 11.25-3728-181.

San Miguel Cojola (near Ostuncalco). 1681. A 1.24- 102 10-

1566:152.

1771. ALIO. 3-
18809-2448.

Comalapa. 1588. A3. 16-40484-2799. 1840. Bl 19.1-55752-

2504:14r.

Santa Lucia Cotzumaluapa. 1710. Al. 11.25-3371-168.

1832. Bl 19.3-58533-2539.

Cubulco. 1785. Al. 11.25-3716-181.

San Gaspar Cuyotenango. 1748. A 1.1 0.3-3 1342-4048.

San Jose Chicaya Solola. 1813. Al. 11.25-8183-392.

San Jacinto Chimaltenango. 1830. Bl 19.1-55622-2503.

Chinautla. 1843. B83.2-25235-1114.

Santa Elena Chiquimula. 1840. Bl 19.2-57362-2526.

San Andres Dean. 1734. A 1.1 0.3-3 1305-4047.

San Miguel El Tejar. 1736. Al. 10.3-31312 and 31311-4047.

San Sebastian Tejar. 1736. Al. 10.3-31312-4047. 1813.

Al. 11.25-3366-166.

Escuintla. 1800. Al. 11.25-7783-377. 1840. Bl 19.3-58929-

2544:3.

San Ildefonso Ixtahuacan. 1759. Al. 11.25-3852-190.

San Andres Izapa. 1678. Al .1 1.25-46503-5405.

1821. Al. 11.25-24361-2782.

Jacaltenango. 1726. Al. 10.3-31298-4047. Al. 10.3-31296-4047.

San Felipe Jesus. 1693. A-53748-6057.

102

San Pablo Jocopilas. 1821. Al. 11.25-8208-393.

Santa Clara Laguna. 1821. Al. 1-57336-6932.

San Juan Laguna. 1819. Al. 11.25-8200-393.

San Pablo Laguna. 1815. Al. 11.23-8186-392.

San Pedro Laguna. 1815. Al. 11.25-8187-392.

Lanquin. 1805. Al. 11.25-3748-183.

San Juan Los Lepaosos. 1817. A3. 1-22530-344:6.

San Bartolome Mazatenango. 1790. Al. 11.25-24796-2812.

1802. Al. 11.25-8224-394. 1810. Al. 11-4189-208.

San Lorenzo Suchitepequez. 1710. A 1.1 0.3-3 1282-4047.

1801. Al. 11.25-4993-205.
Santa Lucia Milpa Altas. 1820. Al. 11.25-24213-2775.
1736. 3.16-10012-482.

San Antonio Nejapa. 1647. Al. 10.3-31252-3046.
San Juan Obispo. 1677. Al. 10.3-31260-4046. 1818. Al. 11.21-
3236-160.

Panajachel. 1821. Al. 11.25-8210-393.
Parramos. 1735. A 1.1 0.3-3 1306-4047.

Patsicia. 1821. Al. 11.25-24354-2782. 1836. Bl 19.1-55660-
2503.
San Miguel Petapa. 1783. Al.l 1.25-3108-153.

1811. Al.l 1.25-7617-370.

1830. B108.7-45054-1959.
Santa Inez Petapa. 1847. Bl 19.3-59718-2548.
Santa Catalina Pinula. 1821. Al. 1-57596-6934.
Quetzaltenango Parish. 1672. ALIO. 3-31257-4046.
1784. Al.l 1.25-3964-195.

San Luis Suchitepequez. 1788. Al.l 1.25-47850-5536.
San Antonio Retalhuleu. 1748. A 1.1 0.3-3 1340-4048.
San Juan Sacatepequez. 1802. Al. 11.25-3101-155.
San Lucas Sacatepequez. 1797. A3. 1-15100-819. 1821. B1.13-
8401-495.

San Pedro Sacatepequez. 1801. A 1.1 0.3- 18828-2448.
San Pedro (San Marcos) Sacatepequez. 1714. A 1.24- 10225-
1581:262.

Santiago Sacatepequez. 1813. Al.l 1.25-7660-371.
Zacualpa. 1813. Al.l 1.25-8188-392.
Samayac. 1811. Al.l 1.25-4190-208.
Santa Apolonia. 1723. Al. 10.3-31396-4053.
Santa Barbara (cor. Totonicapan). 1676. Al. 10.3-31261-4046.
San Andres Semetabaj. 1818. Al.l 1.25-8198-393.

103

Siquinala. 1723. Al. 10.3-31294-4047.
Solola. 1814. Al. 11.25-8185-342.
San Antonio

San Gabriel

Suchitepequez.

1639. Al. 10.3-31248-4046

1776. Al. 10.3-16546-2280

1817. Al. 11.25-8251-3950

Mazatenango.

1722. A3. 16-40867-2817

1805. Al. 11-8227-394.

1821. Al. 11.25-8261-

395.

itepequez. 1824.

B80.6-23064-1079:7.

Tactic. 1729. Al. 11.3-6830-329.

Taxisco. 1823. Bl 19.3-58425-2537:1

Tecpan. 1711. Al. 11.25-3275-163.

Texutla San Marcos department. 1799. Al. 11.25-3984-197.

San Lucas Toliman. 1820. A 1.1 1.25-8205-393.

San Cristobal Totonicapan. 1812. Al. 11.25-8049-386.

Santa Catalina Utatlan. 1817. A3.1-22525-1344:5r.

Santo Domingo Xenacoj. 1699. A 1.1 0.3-3 1277-4041

1735. Al. 10.3-31307-4047. 1797. Al. 10.3-18827-2448.

San Pedro Yepocapa. 1799. Al. 11-3339-165.

San Pablo Zacapa. 1836. Bl 19.2-57010-2521.

San Francisco Zapotitlan. 1744. A 1.1 0.3-3 1332-4048.

San Pedro Diria. 1725. Al. 11-3236-483 (5).

Quezalhuaque. 1738. Al. 11.25 (5)-3844-499.

Masatep. 1742. Al. 11-3240-483.

San Juan Bautista Masatepe. 1747. A1.11.25(5)-3225-482.

Solingalpa. 1821. Al. 11-3229-483.

Mosonte. 1726. A1.24-10229-1585:48

Santiago Tepesomo. 1672. A1.24-10208-1564:31.

Telica. 1683. Al.24-1021 1-1567:370.

Matagalpa, Solingalpa, Mologuima. 1714. Al. 24-10225-

1581:111.

San Francisco Reytoca. 1819. A1.11.25(4)-3527-385.

Tegucigalpa. 1821. A1.11.25(4)-385-3529.

Alubar. 1821. A1.11.25(4)-385-3530.

Gracias a Dios. 1782. A1.11.25(4)-447-47.

Lepaera. 1814. A1.11.25(4)-351 1-385.

Machaloa. 1818. A1.11.25(4)-3520-385.

OTHER ITEMS

(1) Protocolos Ms.

104

(2) Libros de Cabildo de Ciudad de Guatemala (Ayuntamiento
de Ciudad de Guatemala)

(3) Reports of Fomento o Gobernacion (also Hacienda) 1878-
1944. Copies in Berkeley.

REFERENCES

Cortes y Larraz, Pedro

1958. Description Geogrdfico-Moral de la Dibcesis de
Guathemala. Guatemala C.A.; Biblioteca
Goathemala.

Fuentes y Guzman, Francisco Antonio

1932. Historia de Guatemala o Recordation Florida. Gua-
temala C.A.; Biblioteca Goathemala.

Juarros, Domingo

1936. Compendio de la Historia de la Ciudad de Guate-
mala. Guatemala C.A.; Tipografia Nacional.

Pardo, J. Joaquin

1944. Efemerides para escribir la Historia de Ciudad de
Guatemala. Guatemala C.A.; Tipografia Nacional.

Recinos, Adrian and Delia Goetz (translators)

1953. The Annals of the Cakchiquels. Norman, Oklahoma;
University of Oklahoma Press.

Recinos, Adrian

1954. Monografia del Departamento de Huehuetenango.
2nd edition. Guatemala, C.A.; Editorial del Ministro
de Education Publica.

105

THE 1970 YUNGAY EARTHQUAKE: POST-
DISASTER CHANGE IN AN ANDEAN
PROVINCE OF PERU

Anthony Oliver-Smith

**

The study of the processes of socio-cultural change initiated
by the onslaught of sudden catastrophic events has been relatively
ignored in the social science literature until quite recently.1 It
seems all the more strange when we consider that statistics of the
recent past show that a natural disaster of a magnitude requiring
international assistance occurs once every three weeks in some
area of the world.2 Despite increasing recent attention to this is-
sue, the vast majority of the literature from the social sciences on
disasters still tends to concentrate primarily on (1) immediate re-
sponse to impact, (2) adaptation of specific organizations to disas-
ter, and (3) implementation of preventative and protective mea-
sures against future disaster agents.3 The present effort contends
that such calamities can be singularly revealing about significant
elements in the analysis of the direction and rate of socio-cultural
change, particularly on the local and regional levels. The specific
purpose of this article is to describe certain patterns of change in
the Andean province of Yungay, in North-Central Peru, after the
earthquake-landslide disaster of May 31, 1970.4 Hopefully, the
description of these patterns will enable us to perceive them in the
context of several existing theoretical perspectives on socio-cul-

** Direct correspondence to: Department of Anthropology, University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida 32611.

1 The research on which this paper is based took place initially from October of 1970
to September of 1971 in Yungay, Ancash, Peru. Additional field trips to Yungay were
undertaken in November and December of 1971 and during the summers of 1974 and
1975. Support for the first research trip came from the Midwestern Universities Consor-
tium for International Activities while the author was a doctoral candidate at Indiana Uni-
versity in 1970-71. Support for the 1974 field trip came from the Office of Sponsored Re-
search, University College, and the Florida State Musuem, all of the University of Florida.
The Society for Health and Human Values supported the author's research in 1975.

2 Personal Communication: Sverre Kilde, Director of the Disaster Preparedeness Bu-
reau, League of Red Cross Societies, Nov. 26, 1974.

3 See for example, Dynes 1970; Form and Nosow 1958; Taylor, Zurcher and Key
1970; and Wallace 1957. An outstanding exception to this trend is Bates, Fogelman,
Parenton, Pittman and Tracy 1963.

4 For a map of the area under discussion, see Paul Doughty, Huaylas: An Andean
District in Search of Progress (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), frontispiece.

107

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986)

tural change, particularly as they relate to the nature of such
change in developing societies.

As previously mentioned, natural disasters have rarely been
given more than token attention as causes of social change, partic-
ularly in pre-industrial and transitional societies. Although disas-
ters disrupt society and allow for certain social mobility, they are
most often seen by social scientists to stimulate immediate adapta-
tions rather than major structural change in pre-industrial socie-
ties. Sjoberg articulated this point in his early summary article on
the subject of disasters and social change (1962). He contended
that disasters in general, while they may have terrible conse-
quences for individuals and families, do not seem to alter the ma-
jor structural arrangements of the society over the long run. Pre-
industrial culture and society are interpreted as being adjustments
to, or results of, a fairly constant "reign of terror." Sjoberg fur-
ther stated that a major consequence of disasters in pre-industrial
societies may be a reshuffling of status positions of people and
groups, but ultimately little change in the overall structure of soci-
ety will take place (Sjoberg 1962:361-2). In this sense, if change
on the scale of social revolution is meant, one would be inclined to
agree, but social change on that scale is a rare enough phenome-
non, even without disasters, either natural or man-made. How-
ever, if we look at the potentialities for change on a slightly less
macroscopic scale, it is possible that this reshuffling of people and
groups in upward and downward mobility at this point in time will
have important ramifications for change in culture and society in
the long run, particularly when there are sharp lines of social de-
marcation as well as serious value conflicts among the various eth-
nic groups and classes of a society. No less significant must be the
multifaceted efforts at coping and adaptation which individuals
and groups may have to undertake in the aftermath of disaster.

Whatever the cause, most anthropological studies of change
are concerned, no matter what methodological or theoretical
problems the subject may present, with the idea of social process.
Social process is found in the repetitive patterns of events in the
workings of social institutions, also referred to by Bohannan as the
"event system" (1963:359). Events systems are cyclical; that is,
they are patterns of predictable, institutionalized events (Bohan-
nan 1963:359). Most natural disasters do not fit into systems of

108

recurring events.6 Indeed, they are potentially disruptive to society
and its characteristic event systems. Disasters can change the na-
ture of the cycle of the event system, leading to new adjustments
within the particular society. The point to be made here is that
disaster is usually not part of process. It is history and the
aftermath of disaster is process coming to grips with history
and, ultimately, change.

Consequently, the study of socio-cultural change does not
concentrate specifically on events, but rather on forms and process
which evolve in response to and through history. The event-struc-
tures of process become predictable to social actors because they
are based on shared concepts of expected behavior the struc-
tural principles upon which the form of recurrent events in turn is
based. These principles provide the guidelines, the predictive
mechanisms which enable actors not only to predict but to act
with some sense of relative security. Therefore, a valid theoretical
approach to the study of socio-cultural change must concern not
only structural principle, but also the organizational framework of
social and psychological dynamics. This becomes particularly ap-
parent when we perceive that one of the main events of disaster
impact is to invalidate, at least partially, predictive principles, up-
setting social as well as psychological equilibrium.

When a disaster strikes a society and becomes part of the
personal experience of every surviving member, that society is ir-
revocably changed. Ultimately, we are concerned with permanent
alterations in the structure of society. For example, our concern
lies not so much with the change in personnel in a particular so-
cial status or role as with the change in definition, function, or
disappearence of that status or role. However, we cannot afford to
ignore changes in personnel in particular roles or functions, since
new personnel may ultimately result in changes in the definition
or function of that particular status. Essentially, we have made a
conceptual distinction here between social organizational change
(personnel change or "social movement") and social structural
change (role definition or function change). The key issue here is
that while social organizational change is the stuff of social pro-
cess, it also may lead to social structural change. Consequently, by

8 In the sense that some disasters are recurrent because of predictable environmental
factors, internal adjustments and arrangements can be made to minimize the disruptive
effect on society. However, there are some disasters expected or unexpected, whose scale
simply confounds most adaptive strategies.

109

studying the processes and systems of decision and choice-making
of individuals in the social organization of society, we are not only
able to understand the principles on which such behavior is
founded, but also we may achieve and understanding of any orga-
nizational change ultimately affecting such principles.

My basic point is that disaster shakes up a society, leaving a
variety of often urgent needs unmet, setting in motion a host of
social organizational responses which were grounded in the pre-
disaster situation. In the post-disaster situation, my contention is
that many social organizational adaptions to altered circum-
stances will lay the groundwork for social structural change.

YUNGAY BEFORE THE DISASTER

The setting of the study on which this paper is based is the
city and proviced of Yungay and the refugee camp of Yungay
Norte (700 meters north of the old city) in the North-Central An-
des of Peru. Yungay, the city, was the central tragedy in a cata-
strophic earthquake in 1970 which claimed more than 70,000 lives
and devastated an area larger than Belgium and Holland com-
bined. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the West-
ern Hemisphere.

Yungay was a city of some 4,500 inhabitants, nestled in the
curve of a hill which supposedly afforded it protection from the
dangers of avalanche from Peru's highest mountain, Huascaran,
which overlooked the city. Although Yungay was slightly north of
the geographic midpoint of the valley known as the Callejon de
Huaylas in which it was located, it was traditionally considered to
be a central place for the region. As the capital, the city was the
seat of most of the important institutions of the province. The vast
majority of the province's educational, economic, political, and re-
ligious institutions were located in the city. The population of the
province, indeed of the entire region, is composed primarily of a
small, powerful, urban elite, a small urban service and commercial
sector, and a vast rural Indian peasant population engaged in
traditional agriculture.6 In many ways Yungay was a typical

8 The terms "Indian" and mestizo are used as cultural labels in this paper. The term
"Indian" has lost its racial significance due to the high degree of miscegenation in Peru. In
this sense, mestizo is used to signify an individual who is part of the national culture and
society of Peru. The term cholo will also be used to describe a person of Indian background
who is integrating himself into mestizo national society. Most alternatives to these usages
usually only add to the confusion of an already complex problem of terminology.

110

preindustrial city. However, a more accurate term for the particu-
lar state in which Yungay city and province found itself prior to
the disaster might be "transitional." For much of this century
there had been a steady movement "down" in the sense that the
urban elite had been moving down from the Andean valleys to the
coastal cities, the urban poor had been moving down to coastal
agricultural labor and the growing urban slums, and the rural
poor had been moving down into the city of Yungay itself as well
as to the coast. Yungay, like the larger cities of the nation, had
been experiencing considerable urban as well as economic growth
with increasing contact and developmental efforts in the region.
The development process had begun.

Land and society in the province were dominated in the
1960s by the largely urban-dwelling wealthy class. The vast peas-
ant population was involved in labor-intensive small-scale agricul-
ture, either on hacienda lands or minifundia holdings. Peasant ag-
riculture is still basically subsistence-oriented with some surplus
available for exchange, usually in the market of Yungay. The In-
dian sector of the peasantry is by far the largest, and is composed
of monolingual Quechua speakers whose culture differs markedly
in many respects from that of the dominant local version of the
national society. However, the peasant and rural sector in general
have always played a key role in Andean society and the disaster
of 1970 produced developments which illustrate the importance of
rural participation in the maintenance of the urban center (Oliver-
Smith 1977).

The city of Yungay played the traditional role of social, polit-
ical, religious, and economic center for the surrounding peasant
population. The peasants of Yungay province were tied to the city
by social and ritual ties of peonage and compadrazgo, by the reli-
gious links of the church and the fiesta system, by the political
links of district and provincial government, and by economic par-
ticipation in its large and thriving market. Thus, the city serviced
not only an urban population but was also a regional center for a
large rural population. In order to fully understand the problems
of persistence and change within the context of disaster, it is nec-
essary to elaborate somewhat on a number of key elements in the
institutional framework of the city and the province.

Ill

Patterns of Ethnic Group Interaction

Traditionally, the Indian peasant of the Andes has always oc-
cupied the lowest rung on the social ladder. Due to antiquated
land tenure patterns, the Indian has been forced to eke out a liv-
ing as a feudal serf on an hacienda or scratch a bare subsistence
crop from small private holdings. In general, his life is a constant
struggle against starvation and he has little access to any ade-
quate medical or educational facilities. Plagued as he is by all the
variables of poverty, the Indian was considered by Yungay
townsmen to be biologically and socially inferior.

The relationships between the Indian and the mestizo begin
on an official level with the political authorities of the provincial
capital, such as the municipal council, the local courts, the police,
the draft board, the local notary and priest. Indian-mestizo rela-
tionships are, by necessity, also maintained on an unofficial level.
There is fairly extensive commercial contact between Indian and
mestizo on marked days in the towns. Sometimes, men from In-
dian villages will work in town for wages or, until recently, to ful-
fill the feudal service obligations which are required of an haci-
enda serf.

The presence of the mestizo is also deeply felt in the rural
areas on the haciendas and the hamlets. On a highland hacienda,
one member of every Indian family had to work from two to four
days a week without pay under the system of feudal peonage. In
addition, a landlord at times required the female members of an
Indian's family to lend their services as domestics in the manor
house. If the Indian did not comply with these traditional de-
mands, any property which he might own, such as livestock which
is the most common form of wealth, might be confiscated.

However, regardless of the rural or urban context of relation-
ships, they are always of a definitely hierarchical character. The
Indian in the mestizo's eyes is always an inferior. The mestizo
will, by subtle or forceful means, always keep the Indian in a so-
cially inferior or dependent position. He may treat the Indian with
affection, calling him "my son" or "compadrito"; he may have
ceremonial relationships with the Indian through the compadrazgo
system; but this system of ritual kinship will always place the
mestizo in a parternal dominant position and the Indian in a posi-
tion of social indebtedness. The Indian is never included in any
mestizo activity on equal footing. High respect for the townsmen

112

is considered to be an essential part of his make-up.

Compadrazgo

Compadrazgo in Yungay, as in much of Latin America, is a sys-
tem by which usually unrelated individuals are bound together
through the sponsorship of another individual, or couple, passing
through an event of ritual importance in the life cycle (Mintz and
Wolf 1950). For example, parents will choose godparents for the
baptism of their child. Other events of importance among Indian
peasants which may require godparents, or padrinos, are the first
haircut, engagement, marriage, baptism, and first communion
(Stein 1961:130).

Compadrazgo institutionalized a relationship around a set of
mutual obligations between compadres (co-parents) and between
padrinos (godparents) and ahijados (godchildren). It is a sign of
the respect in which one is held to be chosen, for example, as the
godfather for the baptism of an infant. In return for the respect
and gifts received, one is expected to become the "spiritual fa-
ther" of the baby and sponsor him with gifts and assistance. Theo-
retically, the godparents are responsible for the child should some-
thing happen to the parents. In addition, the relationship between
the godfather and the father of the child becomes duly formalized
through the ceremony and a set of responsibilities and obligations
are undertaken for mutual assistance (Doughty 1968:115).

Compadrazgo is entered into in varying patterns and degrees
by Indians, cholos, and townsmen in Yungay. In Yungay, hori-
zontal compadrazgo relationships exist in all classes. The upper
class, almost without exception, will choose its compadres from its
own class or seek someone of a higher status, perhaps in a depart-
mental capital or in Lima. Among the Indians of Yungay, hori-
zontal compadrazgo relationships are entered into in the less im-
portant events, such as a housewarming, an ear-piercing, or a
hair-cutting ceremony. In vertical compadrazgo relationships, the
godfather is invariably in the superior role. It is in the important
ceremonies of life that the Indian peasant will seek to ally himself
through compadrazgo with a wealthier person in his own commu-
nity or a townsman from Yungay. In theory, establishing com-
padrazgo relationships with a townsman could bring increased
material assistance to an Indian peasant.

113

The Traditional Politico-Religious Authority System

The politico-religious authority structure of Yungay was inti-
mately related to the system of fiestas and peasant labor contribu-
tions and, as such, must be discussed within that context. The dis-
trict of Yungay was divided into two barrios: to the south, Mitma
and to the north, Huambo. Political authority flowed from the of-
fice of the mayor of Yungay into the peasant hamlets along two
lines. The first chain of authority involved the Agente Municipal,
the district agent in all civil matters of the mayor Yungay in the
community. The second line of authority involved the barrio struc-
ture and dealt primarily with politico-religious functions. The
mayor of Yungay appointed each January 1, and Alcalde
Pedaneo, or Indian "petty mayor," for each barrio. The position
of petty mayor is surrounded by many religious and political sanc-
tions. He is appointed by the mayor of Yungay, but also approved
in elaborate religious ceremonies involving the benediction of his
staff (the symbol of office) by the church. His position has been
likened by one informant to that of the "father of his people" and
he must be of exemplary character so that he will be a good ex-
ample to his "children."

Orders from the office of the mayor could follow either chain
of authority directly to the municipal agent, or to the petty mayor
who would then undertake to direct the individual communities.
The responsibilities of the petty mayor lay primarily in two fields:
the fiesta system and its religious ramifications and the system of
peasant labor for the district of Yungay.

The primary fiestas in Yungay were those of Holy Week,
Palm Sunday, the Virgen de la Candelaria, Santa Rosa, and
Santo Domingo. It was the responsibility of the petty mayor to
mobilize his entire barrio for the fiesta, including the securing of
financial contributions to the event, supplying food and drink for
the principals in the ceremonies, and organizing the population of
the barrio for their participation in the fiesta. Many activities in
the fiestas consisted in the playing out of the traditional rivalries
between the two barrios, Huambo and Mitma.

In addition to this and other religious functions, the Alcalde
Pedaneo was, on occasion, responsible for the organization and as-
signment of peasant labor whenever so ordered by the mayor of
Yungay. The order for peasant labor for a particular project of
benefit to the town or district would be sent to the Alcalde

114

Pedaneo and it would be his responsibility to select the community
from which a labor force would be drawn to carry out the work.

The Yungay Market

Yungay had long been known as a commercial center for the
middle area of the Callejon de Huaylas. Its concentration of stores
and its daily market dwarfed its only provincial competitor of
Mancos and was considerably larger than that of the neighboring
provincial capital of Carhuaz. It was, in fact, the third-largest
commercial center in the entire zone. The reasons for the eco-
nomic importance of Yungay were the density of the peasant pop-
ulation and the varied ecology of the agricultural system, which
provided numerous crops on a year round basis to the Yungay
market.

Due to the density of the rural population, the wide variety of
crops available, and also the urban population not involved in pro-
duction, the Yungay market was a key institution in the province
from both rural and urban perspectives. The Yungay market
served as an outlet for peasant surplus, an exchange for manufac-
tured articles, and as a supplier of both foodstuffs and manufac-
tured articles for urban dwellers. Commercial crops grown on ha-
ciendas and other large holdings bypassed the market. Upper class
economic interests maintained a high degree of control over the
market in all its aspects and, quite often, the market would be
manipulated by key individuals to raise prices for nonexportable
commodities. The upper class interests involved consisted of live-
stock owners, landowners, and the larger storekeepers. These peo-
ple, through their representation on the municipal council, con-
trolled every aspect of the market from pricing to sanitation.

In terms of numbers, if not power, the Indian peasantry was
by far the largest group participating in the market. Peasant
women in large numbers would daily market extremely small
amounts of surplus crops, left over from subsistence needs, in or-
der to buy manufactured necessities in town. Even though the
amount marketed as minimal, the high number of sellers provided
that a substantial quantity of food was channeled into the city
each day in this fashion.

However, despite upper class domination and peasant numer-
ical superiority, the Yungay market had become the platform for
lower-class cholo and lower-middle-class mestizo economic ambi-

115

tions through the formation of a market syndicate. One of the
most important groups in the Yungay market was the
revendadora (reseller) group made up of essentially chola women
who performed both wholesaling and retailing functions for local
(and some nonlocal) agricultural products. Almost all of these
women were rural residents of small communities close to Yun-
gay. They maintained contacts with peasants for resale in the
market. These women, working on a scale too small for large agri-
culturists to bother with, assured, along with peasant sellers, that
there would be a steady flow of food from the countryside into the
market. In addition to these non-Indian lower-class women, there
was a group of cholo and lower-class mestizo men and women in-
volved as brokers in the export of agriculture products to the coast
and the importing of manufactured articles to the highlands. Fi-
nally, there were a large number of both male and female cholo
dry goods sellers, also essentially of rural origin.

THE DISASTER

The most destructive earthquake in the history of the West-
ern Hemisphere took place on the afternoon of May 31, 1970, in
the coastal and mountain areas of North-Central Peru. It regis-
tered 7.7 on the Richter scale and covered an area of about
65,000 square kilometers, took approximately 70,000 lives, injured
roughly 50,000 people, and damaged or destroyed an estimated
186,000 buildings or approximately 80 percent of all structures in
the zone. The earthquake shook loose a slab of ice and rock about
800 meters wide and 1800 meters long from the sheer northwest
face of Huascaran, Peru's highest peak, at an estimated altitude
of between 5,500 and 6,500 meters. This immense mass, constitut-
ing more than 25 million cubic meters of ice, mud, and rock at ist
source, careened down the Llanganuco Valley at an average veloc-
ity of between 217 and 435 kilometers per hour, picking up on its
way huge masses of morainal material and hurling literally
thousands of boulders, some weighing thousands of tons, down the
valley. The momentum of the slide carried it the 16 kilometers
from its origin on Huascaran to the valley floor in four minutes.
The avalanche developed three separate lobes as it extended itself
over the lower parts of the valley. One of these lobes leapt a pro-
tective ridge some 200 meters high and buried in seconds the en-
tire city of Yungay, killing approximately 95 percent of its inhabi-

116

tants. All that remained of Yungay some four minutes after the
earthquake had ceased its tremors were four palm trees where the
main plaza had been, some 300 terrified survivors who had es-
caped by reaching high ground, and an immense expanse of dull
grey viscous mud, interrupted by huge boulders which, in the days
followed appeared to grow in size as the mud settled around them.
The total volume of ice, mud, and rock which descended from
Huascaran upon Yungay and other neighboring villages is esti-
mated to be approximately 50 million cubic meters (Erickson,
Plafker and Fernandez Concha 1970:1).

Immediately after the disaster, the survivors sought shelter in
a number of locations in the area. These locations eventually be-
came the sites of four of the major refugee campes of the rehabili-
tative system which was established in Yungay Province. The four
sites were Pashulpampa (later to be called Yungay Norte), Aura,
Yungay Sur, and Tingua, all within a 15 kilometer radius of each
other.

While nothing of the city remains, all but ten of the approxi-
mately 50 satellite peasant communities survived. Most of the few
urban survivors, some 300 originally, formed a tent camp (later
known as Yungay Norte) one-half mile north of the avalanche in
the protection of a large hill. Soon they were joined by refugees
from the peasant communities in such quantities that a year later
the populations had reached approximately two thousand people,
less than ten percent of which were original Yungay residents.
The town before the disaster had a high percentage of professional
and commercial people and, despite its picturesque appearance,
had a bustling atmosphere of social and economic life quite re-
mote in aspect and value from the rural setting which it occupied.
In the year following the disaster, Yungay Norte grew to approxi-
mately one-half its former population level, but the character of
the town's inhabitants had changed from one which was basically
urban, specialist, and commercial, to one composed of peasant
agriculturalists, artisans, and rural proletariat. Although, in the
year after the tragedy, approximately 1 5 percent of the population
of Yungay Norte was composed of professional people, many of
these individuals were not originally residents of the city, having
been sent in as teachers by the Ministry of Education after the
disaster. However, notwithstanding the change in the composition
of the population, by 1974 the refugee camp of Yungay Norte had
acquired all administrative, economic, educational, governmental,

117

and religious centrality of the former capital. The new city, con-
sisting mainly of composition board barracks through 1975, grew
from a ragged group of survivors to a city of more than 3,000
people in less than five years. To all outward appearances, Yungay
Norte gave the impression of simply having picked up where the
old city had left off. All the former capital's institutions were relo-
cated in Yungay Norte and those individuals of the old urban elite
who survived soon appeared in leadership and prestige positions. It
seemed almost as though the old system had reappeared relatively
unscathed.

POST-DISASTER CHANGES

Despite the persistence of certain formal patterns, a great
many processes of change were underway in Yungay Norte. The
city of Yungay had been the central place of a region composed
almost entirely of numerous small peasant communities. These
peasant communities were in a highly dependent relationship to
the provinical capital. The disaster completely destroyed the capi-
tal city and thus deprived the peasant society of the locus of the
cluster of institutions upon which it depended. A center of social,
economic, and political power had been destroyed and its survivors
set about to rebuild the capital of their social structure and value
system, but with vastly depleted resources.

The problem was that Yungay's percentage of power-wield-
ing individuals given all the institutions of the old capital, had
retained its structural importance in the traditional system but the
personnel which had apparently maintained Yungay's structural
importance, the landlords, the professionals, the large commercial
interests, the decentes, were greately reduced in number. Being in
large part urban dwellers, the powerful of Yungay had perished in
the avalanche. Only a small percentage had survived the disaster
to take up the reins of power. While they retained the power, they
did not and could not constitute or give identity to the new town.
While basic political and economic power arrangements in the
new city were not radically restructured in any immediate sense,
the changed character of the population of the refugee camp of
Yungay began to have effects on the nature of rural-urban
relationships.

Indeed, an examination of certain patterns of persistence and
change in Yungay life reveals an intensification of trends of

118

change underway before the disaster, as well as a hardening of
those attitudes resisting that change. Processes of social change,
which had been making slow inroads into traditional sierra society
before the disaster, were quickened by the disruption of the disas-
ter. Important alterations in both society organization and, in
some cases, social structure demonstrate the increased complexity
and fluidity of form and function characteristic of rapidly chang-
ing societies which were far less evident in the pre-disaster era.

Compadrazgo

One of the primary areas in which change began to take
place in Yungay society in the year following the disaster is in the
institution of compadrazgo. Vertical compadrazgo relationships
diminished and new patterns of horizontal compadrazgo relation-
ships emerged. The Indian peasant began to choose his com-
padres, regardless of the relative importance of the ceremonial
event, from his own class, usually an individual who has been
close to his family. Certainly a key factor in any explanation of
this change must be the fact that the number of individuals of
social power had diminished greatly in Yungay. However, it must
be recognized that sectors of the urban population, notably for-
merly rural cholo merchants and traders, have enjoyed a consider-
able rise in income in the new town and have become desirable
candidates for compadrazgo relationships. This upsurge of social
mobility on the part of people heretofore of inferior status has led
to expanded interaction and integration of the lower segments of
the population with newly influential groups. Prior to the disaster,
the cholo entreprenuers were small agriculturalists, part-time shop
owners, and small-scale agricultural import-export brokers who
resided in the small peasant hamlets close to the city of Yungay.
Now they constitute a rising economic elite, recognized, albeit re-
luctantly by traditional elites, as being of some consequence in the
socio-economic life of the town, district, and province. Therefore,
the Indian peasant has proportionately more people than he had
before the disaster with whom he can interact with less subservi-
ence and disadvantage. Yungay is now a cholo town.

Patterns of Ethnic Group Interaction

The sudden disappearance of the vast majority of powerful
people in Yungay society has had profound effects on the nature

119

of Indian-mestizo relations. While formal structures since the
earthquake have remained relatively intact, aspects of Indian role
behavior have begun to change. Indians still occupy the lowest
rung on the social ladder but, for example, they are no longer dic-
tated to by townsmen on the issue of wages. Indians who were not
satisfied with employers' offers, now refuse with impunity. Towns-
people experience a sense of outrage, or righteous indignation,
when an Indian now refuses to perform labor at the menial wages
traditionally paid. Clearly, a value which is strongly rooted in
traditional highland society is being contradicted. Choice in the
disposition of their own labor was not something that Indians were
permitted to enjoy.

The reasons for such a change in Indian role behavior in
Yungay can be traced to the disaster and to the aid which fol-
lowed it. In the first place, the disaster disrupted the linkages in
the chain of informal authority that tied Indian communities to
Yungay and Indian individuals to urban individuals. In essence,
the strength of the moral authority of those few urban survivors is
not sufficient to exert the traditional levels of coercion over Indi-
ans who had suddenly perceived an element of choice with regard
to the disposition of their own labor.

Another factor which reinforced this alteration in the Indian
role was the fact that the national government began to contribute
in a serious fashion to the construction of a permanent settlement
in the refugee camp of Yungay Norte. This construction program,
paying wages two to three times higher than average Indian
wages, created a seller's market, albeit a temporary and artificial
one. However, the point here is that the Indians, through those
factors mentioned here, achieved the ability to choose. Their labor
was no longer a quantity to be delivered on demand to the town-
speople. Indian refusal to deliver labor at traditional prices is a
clear indication that something very basic in the relationship be-
tween Indian and townsman has changed since the earthquake.
While Yungaino social structure has not been destroyed or over-
turned by the disaster, adjustments by all survivors to life in the
post-disaster period have occasioned behavioral and organizational
changes which may evolve into significant social structural altera-
tion in the future. Indeed, the rapidly growing city of Yungay
Norte 10 years after the disaster possessed more variegated and
flexible patterns of social interaction than its predecessor even
though the social structure remained, thus far, relatively constant.

120

Indeed, while relationships of traditional servile domination di-
minished, there have been indications in more modern, less per-
sonal economic forms of dependency.

The Traditional Politico-Religious Authority Structure

Similar developments have occurred in the traditional polit-
ico-religious authority structure. The landslide which buried Yun-
gay also obliterated nine communities and cut off six others in the
barrio of Mitma from their district capital. The petty mayor of
Mitma was killed, as were many of his assistants in the various
communities. Essentially then, this left the traditional village au-
thority system, which is extralegal, reduced almost by half.

When the authorities in the reconstituted government of
Yungay Norte attempted to appoint a replacement for the dead
petty mayor, all of the potential candidates refused on grounds
that they did not want the responsibility for only the remainder of
the dead mayor's term. However, when the local authorities in
Yungay Norte attempted to recruit a petty mayor for Mitma, at
the traditional first of the year appointment date, again they could
find no one to undertake the responsibility for its traditional polit-
ico-religious authority. As of August of 1980, the barrio of Mitma
was still without an Indian petty mayor. This reluctance on the
part of the remaining communities of Mitma to reintegrate them-
selves into the traditional authority structure has had widespread
ramifications in the overall nature of rural-urban political rela-
tionships as they relate to that barrio.

The fiesta system of Yungay has changed. In the post-disas-
ter period the entire surviving population of Mitma refused to par-
ticipate in the fiestas of Santa Rosa and Santo Domingo, upsetting
the traditional system of barrio rivalries. Since everyone had re-
fused the responsibility of the post of petty mayor, the entire bar-
rio had, in effect, refused to make the financial contributions nor-
mally required of them for the success of the fiesta system. The
people of Mitma stated that the destruction wrought by the disas-
ter had given them better things on which to spend their money.
They stated that they have always considered their participation
in the fiesta system to be a burden not worth the expenditure of
money and effort which it demanded. No action was taken against
them.

The inhabitants of the barrio of Mitma have also used the

121

disaster as a means of passively resisting the imposition of author-
ity from Yungay. By refusing to have a petty mayor appointed by
Yungay Norte, Mitma has effectively limited their forced partici-
pation in the unpaid Indian labor contribution to the city. In addi-
tion, a number of Mitma communities have elected their own
petty mayors, defying the traditional principle that the petty
mayor is always appointed by the formal system in Yungay. They
have also defied the formal structure of administrative procedure
by electing their own municipal agents.

The nature of enforcement of the traditional authority system
was such that when disrupted by disaster, the time it took to reest-
ablish all the links in the chain of communications allowed for the
possibility of change. By the time attempts were made to restruc-
ture the lines of power and communication, dissident factions in
Mitma had already exploited the temporary power vacuum and
disruption to rid themselves of a system to which they had little
commitment and from which they derived few advantages. Insofar
as dissatisfaction existed within the system, it is evident that the
disaster availed people in the barrio of Mitma with the opportu-
nity to make new choices regarding their continued participation
in the entire system. Indeed, the disruption caused by the disaster
has resulted in the acquisition of potential power by communities
which, prior to the disaster, were relatively helpless to resist tradi-
tional forms of coercion from the city of Yungay. In a very real
way the peasants of Mitma acquired a sense of their own political
expression and will in the aftermath.

The fact that they have been able to resist reintegration into
the informal system for better than ten years indicates that this
political expression of independence is well on its way to perma-
nence. Moreover, the change in the informal structure may be in-
dicative that change in the formal political structure of the district
could come about. There are indications that the rebellious com-
munities of Mitma may initiate action to separate themselves for-
mally from the district of Yungay to form still another district in
the province. Here, then, is a case of informal adjustment to disas-
ter conditions ultimately affecting change on a formal structural
level.

The Yungay Market

Notwithstanding certain changed patterns in social and polit-

122

ico-religious institutions, economic institutions have remained rel-
atively stable, although agricultural patterns in general were upset
by the disaster. The landslide and earthquake swept away many
of the irrigation canals and outlets and, for this reason, agricul-
ture was limited. In November of 1970, a full five months after
the disaster, more-or-less normal patterns of agriculture began to
be reestablished in the majority of the communities.

Yungay's status as a market center was also soon reestab-
lished. Not two weeks after the disaster, organized commercial ac-
tivity began to appear in the open area of the refugee tent camp.
Indian peasants who immediately after the disaster had given
their surplus food to the survivors, began to sell their produce
again. In two weeks more, quinchas (structures of laced cane and
mud) had been erected as stores by urban survivors. Two months
later the reconstructed provincial government, now located in the
refugee camp, began to collect fees for the right to sell in town. In
December of 1970 the Ministry of Housing constructed and dis-
tributed to over 90 vendors the official Yungay market buildings.
The provincial government immediately took charge of these
buildings, instituted rental charges for the stores and ground
space, and appointed municipal employees to collect rents and
maintain the hygiene of the location. Peasants who had turned to
selling their produce in the nearby towns of Caraz and Mancos
started returning and Yungay began to regain its importance as a
commercial center. Thus, some six months after total destruction,
Yungay had reconstructed its economic life and its market was
again one of the largest in the valley.

There are a number of reasons for Yungay's rapid economic
reconstruction and recovery; principal among them was the exis-
tence and participation of a large market-oriented peasant popula-
tion in the area. There was little change in the status and role of
the Indian in the market. They are still today limited to being
primary producers of food in extremely small quantities, and con-
sumers of a limited number of manufactured articles. However,
their role in the market is determined by mechanisms and institu-
tions external to the market, and conditions endemic to peasant
markets in many parts of the world. Because of a high peasant
population on minimal arable land, there is still an unusually high
number of sellers, all dealing in minimal quantities. There is also
still a high number of rather poor buyers in Yungay. Competition
is intense and profit, or income, is low. Capital accumulation on

123

the part of the Indian seller is held to a minimum, a phenomenon
not uncommon in peasant markets in general (Belshaw 1965:57).
In addition to the difficulties of capital accumulation present in
the market, the Yungay Indian peasant still suffers a number of
structural restraints imposed on him by his socio-cultural identity.
To enable himself to use the market to his best advantage, the
Indian peasant must learn Spanish, must abandon Indian dress,
must gain access to sources of credit and storage, and must be
able to interact freely and equally with the entrepreneurial cholos
and mestizos of highland Peruvian society. In short, he must cease
being an Indian. The Indian peasant understands the market
mechanism. Market conditions and the ramifications of his socio-
cultural identity make it extremely difficult for him to use the
market in anything but a limited fashion. The disaster had done
little to change this situation.

The market is used by the Indian in the only way possible for
him at present, and his is fully aware of this fact. The Indian is
also fully aware of his own importance to the institution of the
market and the town. In discussing the possible location of the
provicial capital some 230 kilometers to the south, they clearly
stated that it would have to do without the market because they,
the campesinos of the Yungay area, would not go there to sell and
buy. They would go to market in Caraz outside of the province.
Approximately 60 percent of the communities of the province in
the valley are within easy walking distance of Yungay. If the mar-
ket were moved to the south, this large peasant population would
be closer to the market in Caraz. (Oliver-Smith 1977).

The role of the revendadora women in the market did not
change after the disaster, either. They are still instrumental in
channeling food into the city from small peasant farms in the ru-
ral areas. While some of these women urbanized with the con-
struction of the town, most of them remain rural residents in the
small communities which surround the refugee camp.

However, while the structure of economic activity remains
fairly constant, the market in Yungay has provided a context for
significant social and economic mobility. One group representing
about 1 2 percent of the permanent market participants in the af-
termath represented an important tendency in the entire disaster
zone that of the peasant who has seen the disruption and re-
construction aid as an opportunity to urbanize, a much desired
goal in Peru. It is important to point out that while all this group

124

is rural and agriculture in origin, they are not monolingual
Quechua-speaking Indian peasants, but cholos and lower class
mestizos who are bilingual, non-Indian in phenotype, sometimes
literate, and economically ambitious. They have employed ascend-
ing vertical compadrazgo relationships, the sale of capital goods,
and the commercial vacuum created temporarily by the disastser,
to leave their marginal existence in agriculture and break into an
equally marginal, but more highly-valued existence in the market
selling dry goods, clothing, and other general articles on small es-
tablished plots on the grounds of the permanent markets. They
depend absolutely on credit from wholesalers with whom they
have friendly contact and have used predisaster hinterland rela-
tionships to develop clientele for their merchandise. However,
their extremely small scale does not allow them to derive more
than a marginal existence from their enterprise. Nonetheless, the
fact that they have urbanized is far more important in their eyes
and nothwithstanding the rigors of thier present economic condi-
tion, they express a guarded optimism about their urban futures.

A far more striking example in this regard is offered by the
cholo entrepreneurs who represented approximately 15 percent of
the permanent market participants. Before the disaster many of
these individuals had been crop brokers, exporters of highland ag-
ricultural products to the coast, and importers of manufactured
goods in the highlands. While most of them were of peasant ori-
gin, they were extremely adept at commerce, trading regularly in
coastal cities; and after the disaster, they were quick to take ad-
vantage of their relationships with truck dirvers, tradesmen, and
wholesalers in the cities for capitalization and credit for their new
enterprises. The majority of them established general stores in the
market complex.

For the cholo entrepreneur the chance to become a comer-
ciante, a merchant with his own fixed establishment constitutes a
step upward not only in economic, but also in social terms.
Merchants are gente de la ciudad (city people) and they may
eventually become decente as opposed to cholo or gente de la
campiha (country people). However, while these new entrepre-
neurs from the peasant communities are gathering economic
strength rather rapidly, social or political power has been ac-
corded them at a somewhat slower pace. The urban survivors of
Yungay, remnants of both the old commercial elite and the pro-
fessional classes have only recently and reluctantly over the ensu-

125

ing years begun to include the new commercial class when deci-
sions affecting the community are to be made. Social mixing
between the old commercial elite and the cholo entrepreneurs has
been extremely rare until quite recently. On the whole, the new
entrepreneurs continue to maintain the same circle of friends, very
often from the market or their community of origin. They have
not changed their style of dress, and occasionally interchange
Spanish and Quechua among themselves. However, one individual
perhaps the most successful of the group, recently achieved the
status of "notable citizen," an honorary title of ceremony and re-
spect. Nonetheless, it must be realized that the gradual accumula-
tion of the socio-economic requirements for positions of social and
political importance by the cholo entrepreneurs is primarily an ex-
ample of social mobility rather than structural alteration. How-
ever, the access of the cholo entrepreneurs to these positions is
certainly symptomatic of a degree of change to a somewhat more
fluid social structure.

DISASTER, SOCIAL PROCESS, AND STRUCTURAL

CHANGE

If we examine Yungay in the decade following the disaster of
1970, it becomes apparent that, despite the countless personal
tragedies and the awesome destruction, the disaster in fact has
accelerated processes of social change in the area. While, initially,
many people felt that "revolution" had come to Yungay through
an accident of nature, it was soon evident that such was not the
case. Society and traditional social structural arrangements were
not turned upside-down by the disaster. Rather, the old system
reasserted itself almost immediately, albeit with the help of the
national government. While the disaster did little to alter patterns
based on national institutions such as the formal governmental,
administrative, or economic organization of the country on the lo-
cal level, the impact and aftermath constituted a disruption of
such magnitude that change was either initiated or accelerated in
a number of important institutions. The disaster was disruptive of
local organization and structure; and adjustment to this disruption
had to be met by individuals and institutions alike, usually
through improvisational, social organizational means which did
the least violence to local structural principles.

The major effects of the disaster the destruction of the

126

city and the demise of the vast majority of the traditional elite
became, in the aftermath, catalysts for further change in the local
society. Indeed, the weakening of traditional elites in Third World
countries has often been considered a key element in the process
of social change (Eisenstadt 1973:24). While the disaster far from
removed all distinctions between people, a certain social balancing
occurred in Yungay. In contrast to the predisaster era, there are
far fewer truly powerful people in the new city. We have seen how
disruption and mortality contributed to greater flexibility of the
social fabric and have led to an increase of social mobility, partic-
ularly through economic channels.

The disruption of traditional patterns of work and production
as well as the rise in the value of labor also increased the social
mobility of the lower sectors of traditional Yungay society. Indian
peasants were more able to dispose of their own labor as they saw
fit, due to the economic input in the form of rehabilitative aid
toward the construction of the new community. The increased
wage labor resulting from rehabilitation programs which are sub-
sequently transformed into development projects in the late 1970s
also led to a diversification and differentiation of economic roles.
People, who prior to the disaster had spent their whole lives in
agriculture, began learning new skills, resulting in a growing spe-
cialization of economic activities.

This increased flexibility and the partial easing of rigidly de-
fined social inequality were manifested also in the developments
seen in the compadrazgo institution. However, peasant and lower-
class Yungainos did not perceive the disaster in revolutionary
terms. They did not celebrate the demise of Yungay, but rather
mourned the deaths of those people significant to them as well as
that of the city. However, after the disaster they did not seek out
new "masters," but rather formed new more nearly horizontal
compadrazgo relationships along traditional institutional lines,
and integrated alterations in the character of the relationship,
choosing not to subvert what was perceived as a valuable institu-
tion. These are essentially what Raymond Firth has described as
organizational changes which do not do major violence to struc-
tural principle, but which may eventually bring about structural
change (1964:61).

From a political standpoint, the alterations in the traditional
structure as well as those minor changes in the formal system on
the community level, demonstrate the incipient spread of potential

127

political expression and power to broader sectors of the popula-
tion. The peasants seized the opportunity created by the disaster
to opt out of a system from which they perceived little advantage.
Indeed, this refusal to link themselves to the city of Yungay again
is characteristic of the importance of independent community
identity which is becoming increasingly common in Peru today.
The peasants of Mitma, particularly whose those communities en-
joy road access, are, since independent from Yungay, establishing
links to the national economic and political scene. Many commu-
nities in Mitma now bypass all regional markets in favor of larger
coastal markets. Perhaps one of the most far-reaching effects of
the disaster is in this context the fact that numerous upward
ties and points of communication have been established by peas-
ants with national institutions through numerous aid agencies and
programs which converged upon the disaster area in the year fol-
lowing the tragedy. Peasants of the entire valley have been ex-
posed to and consequently integrated partially into the institu-
tional network of social and economic services of the national
system.7 Ultimately, we have seen the massive urbanization of
Yungay, the growth of a ragged group of survivors to a commu-
nity of over 4,000 people in less than ten years, as an intensifica-
tion of a broad pattern of urbanizing which has been taking place
in Peru for several generations. This is perhaps the most profound
and far-reaching change in which the disaster has been instrumen-
tal. It is important to emphasize, however, that urbanizing peas-
ants in the main are not Indians, but rather cholos and lower-class
mestizos. This increasing integration and participation of these
heretofore marginal people into the national social, political and
economic institutions of Peru has been termed the process of
"cholification." While Yungay Norte, like the old city which pre-
ceded it, is still a center for the few remaining traditional elites,
and even some who might aspire to that status, they are becoming
increasingly insistent and defensive of their prerogatives as they
witness the increasing "cholification" of Yungay Norte. The disas-
ter and the construction of the camp in the aftermath provided a
unique opportunity for numerous actors who had been waiting pa-
tiently in the wings to finally perform on the local version of the
modern urban stage.

The disaster has allowed and, in some cases, impelled many

7 For further material on this issue see Oliver-Smith 1977.

128

people to break with their traditional past. People left the impov-
erished but relative stability of traditional agriculture to endure
the insecurity of employment in the fluctuating economy built
around disaster rehabilitation project construction. The disaster
has also helped to create an environment of growing complexity
for those who have chosen to urbanize. This complexity is perhaps
best exemplified by the greater fluidity within the local social
structure.

While we have seen that few of the formal institutions have
been structurally altered by the disaster, the processes at work on
a social organizational level to cope with conditions in the after-
math indicate that forms of change are occurring which have im-
portant implications for structural alteration of the society. In
general, this conclusion is consistent with Sjoberg's generalization
that disasters tend to accentuate or bring to the surface any pro-
cess of phenomenon of change in existence at the time of impact
(1962:373). While the disaster destroyed many of the infrastruc-
tural elements of the area, these were all replaced and, in fact,
largely improved upon within five years. Indeed, Sjoberg may well
have been correct in the early sixties when he wrote that disasters
do not seem to alter major structural arrangements of traditional
societies (1962:361-2), but different historical circumstances may
point in other directions today in the mid-eighties. There are to-
day many more pressures on traditional societies for change. It
may well be that one of the inevitable results of severe natural
disaster in the Third World today is the increasing integration of
traditional local societies into national systems, with all the struc-
tural alterations, both positive and negative for individual and
community welfare, that this transition implies.

REFERENCES

Bates, F. L., C. W. Fogleman, V. J. Parneton, R. H. Pittman, and G. S. Tracy, (1964).

The Social and Psychological Consequences of a Natural Disaster: A Longitudinal

Study of Hurricane Audrey, Disaster Study No. 18, Washington, D.C.: National

Academy of Sciences National Research Council.
Belshaw, Cyril, (1964). Traditional Exchange and Modern Markets, Englewood Cliffs,

New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Bohannan, Paul, (1963). Social Anthropology, New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston.
Doughty, Paul L., (1968). Huaylas: An Andean District in Search of Progress, Ithaca:

Cornell University Press.
Dynes, Russell, (1970). Organized Behavior in Disaster, Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath

and Company.
Eisenstadt, S. N., (1966). Modernization: Protest and Change, Englewood Cliffs, New

129

Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Erickson, George E., George Plafker, and Jaime Fernandez Concha, (1970). Preliminary
Report on the Geologic Events Associated with the May 31, 1970, Peru Earthquake,
Washington, D.C.: U. S. Department of the Interior.

Firth, Raymond W., (1964). Elements of Social Organization, Boston: The Beacon Press.

Form, W. H. and S. Nosow, (1958). Community in Disaster, New York: Harper and
Brothers.

Mintz, Sydney and Eric Wolf. (1950). "An analysis of Ritual Coparenthood (Com-
padrazgo)," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 6:341-368.

Oliver-Smith, Anthony, (1977). "Traditional Agriculture, Central Places and Post-Disaster
Urban Relocation in Peru," American Ethnologist, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Feb.).

Sjoberg, Gideon, (1962). "Disaster and Social Change," Baker, George W. and Dwight
Chapman, (eds.), Man and Society in Disaster, New York: Basic Books.

Stein, William, (1961). Hualcan: Life in the Highlands of Peru, Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.

Taylor, James B., Louis A. Zurcher, and William H. Key, (1970). Tornado, Seattle: The
University of Washington Press.

Wallace, Anthony F. C, (1956). Tornado in Worcester, Washington, D.C. Disaster Study
No. 3, Committee on Disaster Studies, National Academy of Sciences, National Re-
search Council.

Weldon, Peter D., (1968). Social Change in a Highland Peruvian Province, Ithaca: Cor-
nell University Latin American Studies Program Dissertation Series.

130

THE BOLIVIAN DISASTER SURVEILLANCE
DATA SYSTEM

Josephine Malilay

Patrick Marnane

William E. Bertrand**

INTRODUCTION

The term "surveillance," originally derived from the epidemi-
ology of infectious disease, has been applied to various facets of
public health. Nutritional surveillance programs, for instance, at-
tempt to provide timely collection and interpretation of data for
decision-making with the purpose of improving nutrition in com-
munities (1). In the same manner, the concept of a surveillance
program for disaster relief has been proposed and developed by
the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) (2). The
aim of such programs is to obtain information so as to plan and
mobilize appropriate assistance for stricken communities. The cur-
rent literature vis-a-vis disaster epidemiology points to the use of
such data systems during the aftermath of the disaster (2,3,4).
While many natural disasters such as earthquakes are not pre-
cisely predictable, others such as droughts and floods can be antic-
ipated more readily. Given an "early warning" system, the predic-
tion of the effects of impending disaster can be made and
appropriate measures taken to ameliorate possible mortality and
morbidity.

Although the development of such systems to aid in the im-
provement of relief programs was recommended in the early
1960s, little has been done to implement the suggestions (5).
Where operational programs do exist, as in the cases of Botswana,
Indonesia, and Ethiopia, information is limited by incomplete doc-
umentation or by the newness of the program (6). This paper ex-
amines an early warning system for droughts and floods in the
context of Latin America.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a surveillance system
that was developed in 1984 under the auspices of the United

** Direct correspondence to: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Tulane
University Medical Center, 1430 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112.

131

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986)

States Agency for International Development (USAID) for moni-
toring conditions related to drought and severe weather conditions
in six departments of Bolivia.

BACKGROUND

The reversal of normal oceanic currents off the west coast of
South America, known as the El Nino phenomenon, in 1981-1982
led to a pattern of severe flooding and prolonged drought in Santa
Cruz, a southern tropical area, and in the northern Andean region
known as the Altiplano, respectively, in 1983 (7). As a conse-
quence, widespread shortages of food, seed, and livestock accom-
panied the drought, while migration to less stricken areas ex-
ceeded usual migratory patterns. Damages to rice crops and
livestock in non-drought areas occurred as a result of flooding,
which in addition, severely affected communications and transpor-
tation infrastructures.

In light of the above events and with the current political and
economic instability of the country, the USAID Mission and other
international organizations have provided assistance to Bolivia. Ef-
fective aid by the Mission, however, has been hampered by the
lack of essential information on the status of health, economic,
and agricultural conditions. A review of existing sources of data in
government and non-government institutions had indicated that a
permanent system allowing for the rapid and efficient collection of
data for immediate use was virtually non-existent. For example,
according to data as of mid- 1984 from the Ministry of Meteorol-
ogy and Hydrology, the drought that occurred in 1983 would not
have been observed until 1986 (8). Hence, the necessity for a data
system at the national level that can address immediate needs re-
lated to droughts and severe weather conditions was recognized.

Given the dearth of current and reliable information, the pro-
posed system attempts to anticipate problems regarding health,
economic, meteorologic, and agricultural conditions particularly in
the rural sector, to determine priorities in times of emergency, to
facilitate evaluation of the impact of certain programs in critical
regions, and to observe the rehabilitation and recuperation of af-
fected areas.

THE DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM

Central to the surveillance system is the use of appropriate

132

indicators that can signal the impact of drought and can provide
information regarding the effects of flooding on health, agricul-
ture, meteorology, economics, transportation, and migration. The
selected topics are thought to be valid variables that would be
most sensitive to changes in existing conditions in the affected re-
gions. The indicators include rates of infant mortality, morbidity
in children less than 5 years of age (with particular emphasis on
respiratory diseases and gastrointestinal disorders), rainfall, mar-
ket prices (for rice, potatoes, wheat flour, and noodles), daily
wages, livestock depletion, migration, crop program development,
seed survival, and water supply in terms of daily consumption and
depth of wells.

Data are collected approximately every twenty-eight days by
six field agents from randomly stratified samples of communities
in each of six targeted departments of the country, namely La
Paz, Druro, Potosi, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, and Tarija. Selec-
tion of the communities is based mainly on the identification of
the community by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and
on the accessibility of the community to main thoroughfares and
existing roads.

In such communities, visits are made to key leaders within
the community and/or to institutions that may have information
of interest to the purposes of the surveillance system. The town
mayor, for one, is interviewed for his perception of the physical
and geographical size of his community. Vital statistics are ob-
tained by querying other community leaders, such as the nurse
and the civil registrar, for their estimations as to the population,
boundaries, and jurisdiction of their respective communities.

One institution that appears to be found in almost all com-
munities is the office of the civil registry. Vital statistics, specifi-
cally natality and mortality, are recorded continuously and are
sent to the National Institute of Statistics on a quarterly basis.
Registration fees, however nominal, are charged of residents
within the jurisdiction of the civil registry.

Health data, or information concerning morbidity, are ob-
tained from community health centers or posts in remote areas, or
centros o puestos de salud. In most cases, tabulation of a range of
diseases by age and sex is maintained on a monthly basis by the
clinic nurse or by a newly graduated physician at work during his
aho de provincia. In health centers that served larger or several
communities, data specific for nutritional status and childhood im-

133

munization are available. In remote health posts where a single
nurse and her assistant administer to the needs of the community.
Information about the availabilty and distribution of oral rehydra-
tion therapy packets for diarrheal disease at the community level
can be obtained.

Agriculture and credit/market systems are monitored period-
ically by the Bolivian Institute for Agricultural Technology
(IBTA). Branches of the institute, usually found in large commu-
nities, initiate projects related to farming and animal husbandry
and perform periodic surveys of harvest and livestock ownership
within a particular area. The availability of produce and livestock
and their corresponding prices in the market are reviewed as well
for any fluctuations in the type of produce available by season and
on the stability of prices in the market.

Another source of secondary data within the existing system
is the experimental station whose activities primarily revolve
around the raising of livestock, including llamas, alpacos, and
vicunas, and the monitoring of weather conditions for a specific
zone of influence. Meteorological information, particularly with
repsect to temperature, precipitation, and barometric pressure, is
collected on a daily basis and is readily available at such stations.

Field visits by the data collectors include an initial assess-
ment of the community in terms of the availability of existing
data, the establishment of contacts between local leaders of the
community and other persons who can provide information re-
garding the generation, the recording, and the verification of the
data. In addition, a directory of routine and special projects and
services for community development is made. In the process, an
understanding of the operation of the community under study is
developed from the collection of both qualitative and quantitative
information.

The data are then transmitted on a periodic basis from the
field to the central office in La Paz, where analysis is executed
with use of the IBM-XT microcomputer, LOTUS 123 spread-
sheets, Wordstar for word processing, Knowledgeman for data en-
try and record management, and SPSS for statistical packaging to
generate rapid results for efficient interpretation. Results of the
system are directed to potential users of the data, including other
components of USAID's Disaster Assistance Program, the Minis-
try of Planning of the government of Bolivia, and other interna-
tional relief organizations so that appropriate action may be

134

taken. After a two-year operation under the direction of USAID,
the surveillance system will be incorporated into the activities of
the Ministry of Planning.

SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

Visits to the communities of Batalles, Achacachi, Viach, Co-
manche, Coro Coro, Cutty, and Luribay in the department of La
Paz for pretesting the survey instrument indicated that the quality
of the existing data was below the level of what had been antici-
pated during earlier planning stages. Although civil registries,
health posts, agriculture institutions, and meteorological stations
were found in most communities, other data sources clearly were
needed.

Subsequent revision of the questionnaires following the
pretest entailed contact with such institutions as the Ministry of
Agriculture (MACA), IBTA, and Office of Meteorology of the
Ministry of Transportation, and the Office of Epidemiology of the
Ministry of Social Welfare and Public Health for the purpose of
obtaining existing data and for acquainting one with communica-
tion channels for those data. Where the information of interest
already existed, the survey instruments were adapted to accomo-
date the reporting schedule of the report forms in those
institutions.

Didactic training of the data collectors, most of whom were
agricultural engineers, included a two-week series of lectures on
vital statistics, epidemiology, meteorology, transport, agriculture
and credit systems, census, migration, and oral rehydration ther-
apy from USAID personnel and from various representatives from
such institutions as INE, CARITAS, the Office of Epidemiology
of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Public Health, and the
Ministry of Agriculture. Practical training was conducted in vari-
ous Altiplano communities including Patacamaya, Ayo Ayo,
Huarina, and Copacabana, where visits were made to the civil
registry, IBTA, and the health post of each town.

Following the field visits, problem areas and other possible
sources of data were identified. For one, the manner of introduc-
ing the project to representatives of the communities required
clarification. In order for the project to be accepted by the local
people, data collectors introduced the project as an activity of the
Ministry of Planning of the Government of Bolivia and of

135

USAID, rather than of one or the other. This was attributed to
the lack of confidence on the part of the community in its national
organizations and to its suspicion of foreign interests. A dual rep-
resentation, it was thought, would alleviate hesitation on the part
of the community to participate in the project, as it would empha-
size the credibility of the project.

A definition for the area of influence of a community raised
considerable confusion. In most instances, geographical bounda-
ries could not be delineated, although the project had access to
government maps. Data, particularly those from the civil registries
and from health posts, included procedencias and domicilios, the
definitions of which differed from place to place. In the same
manner, teachers in certain communties kept a census of their stu-
dents based on the area de primario. The area of influence of the
school, however, differed from the area of influence of the civil
registry and/or the health post of the same "community". In the
department of Tarija, communities are dispersed so that a stan-
dard definition may be difficult. In epidemiologic terms, any com-
parison of the effects of the indicators in question would require
the use of different denominators.

The quality of incoming data raised questions with respect to
reliability and validity. When asked separately about the esti-
mated population of their community, the mayor and nurse of one
community responded within a range of several thousand. To vali-
date responses may prove difficult, particularly in situations where
a wide range for an estimated single summary figure is given.
Moreover, the recording of natality and mortality from civil regis-
ters was at best sketchy. Many births were registered several
years later, once the child was ready to begin school in which
birth certificates were required upon registration. Also, the fees
required by the civil registry may have deterred prompt registra-
tion of birth or death.

Selection of the 1 80 communities for the study was not ran-
domly stratified. These communities were selected by their respec-
tive data collector for their easy identification on maps provided
by the National Institute of Statistics and for their proximity to
main thoroughfares. Since complete maps of all communities do
not exist, a random stratification of the communities for study was
not possible.

Thus, it appears that the thrust of the surveillance system is
to generalize from weak data given a myriad of sources of varying

136

degrees of confidence and reliability. Rather than focusing on the
notion of probabilistic samples, emphasis for data analysis is place
on the relationship between representativeness and exceptions.
The existence of outliers, blips in curves, problems and inconsis-
tencies, quick changes, which statistics tend to obscure, presents
issues for consideration in the operation of the surveillance system.

Survey instruments for agriculture and market/credit sys-
tems are in the process of development. Initial field visits indicated
a lack of a uniform weighing scale throughout the markets. In
addition, responses for harvest yields and losses and for the quan-
tity of livestock per farmer were at best educated guesses. These
and others were similar problems that were faced by local agricul-
tural organizations (MACA and IBTA) in their surveys.

Because the project was tested initially in the Altiplano
where drought was a major problem, indicators for the effects of
the former rather than for flood, a phenomenon more common in
the valleys, were emphasized. Appropriate indicators for the latter
will be added upon full operation of the surveillance system.

Possible data sources that were identified were the programs
of the clubes de madres, a women's organization found in almost
all communities with feeding programs for children, and the Plan
de Padrinos, an international organization with multisectorial de-
velopment programs that encompassed health and agriculture. A
possible source for transport data were police records from road
blocks in certain towns where vehicles were inspected for contra-
band. Lastly, priests and other ministers were able to provide
some mortality information.

Can such surveillance data system predict the effects of
drought and severe weather conditions? In a country beset with
spiralling inflation and numerous daily strikes (9), it appears that
the success or failure of a surveillance system in its attempt to
detect any normal or non-normal changes is largely affected by
the spectrum of socioeconomic events outside the system itself.
Hence, any attributable changes as evidenced by a measure of the
indicators cannot be due simply to the surveillance system per se,
but must be viewed as the possible result of competing causes as
well. Moreoever, criteria for the particular surveillance system, or
of any diaster surveillance system for that matter, have yet to be
developed. Whether or not the system can in fact predict the im-
pacts of drought and other severe weather conditions remains to
be seen.

137

In any event, the system is an attempt to provide early warn-
ing and intervention to prevent epidemic inadequacies with respect
to the effects of drought and flood. Through the timely, rapid, and
short-term exchange of information, the operation is essentially a
methodology for addressing needs given an imminent deterioria-
tion in health, economic, meteorological, and agricultural condi-
tions. The system, in addition, creates an infrastructure by which
sensitive and specific data are collected to reflect prevaling condi-
tions. In light of the impacts of competing causes on the system,
perhaps in time a similar methodology also may be developed for
addressing such causes (e.g., spiralling inflation).

REFERENCES

1. Habicht, J. P. and Mason, J. Chapter 12. Nutritional Surveillance: Principles and Prac-

tice, from Nutrition in the Community, John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 1983.

2. Pan American Health Organization. Scientific Report No. 407. Emergency Health

Management After Natural Disaster, 1981.

3. Spenser, H. C, Romero, A., et al. The Lancet, 23 July 1977.

4. Rohde, J. E. Journal of Medical Sciences, 11, 1 March 1979.

5. Tabor, Steven. Drought Relief and Information Management: Coping Intelligently with

Disaster, USAID, Gaborone, Botswana, 20 June 1983.

6. Committee on International Nutrition Programs, Food and Nutrition Board, National

Research Council. Nutritional Surveillance: A Synopsis, Washington, D. C: National
Academy Press, 1982.

7. Cane, M. A. Science, 222, 4629, 16 December 1983.

8. USAID/Bolivia staff report, unpublished.

9. The Wall Street Journal, 1 February 1985.

138

WEATHER-BASED HAZARDS IN COLONIAL

GUATEMALA

Robert H. Claxton**

The history of colonial Guatemala provides many examples of
natural hazards having significant impacts upon the inhabitants.1
Between the arrival of the Spanish and independence in 1821, the
area which comprises the modern nation of Guatemala exper-
ienced at least seventeen volcanic eruptions, thirty earthquakes,
seventeen locust infestations, numerous epidemics, a half-dozen
frosts, and droughts as well as floods.2 Environmental hazards
prompted the Spanish to move their capital on three occasions:
1527, from Iximche to Almolonga, or Ciudad Vieja, (partly for its
warmer climate); 1541, from Almolonga (due to floods), to Anti-
gua; 1773, from Antigua (due to a devastating earthquake) to its
present site.

This essay identifies times of drought and flood, the two most
important weather-based natural hazards in colonial Guatemala.
By undertaking this type of research, historians can make contri-
butions to two other fields. (1) Historians can expand the under-
standing physical scientists have of "normal" weather by ex-
tending the record to centuries rather than conventional thirty-
year averages.3 (2) In addition, by examining the impact of varia-
bility upon human institutions in the past, historians can assist
crisis managers to form policy regarding emergency relief and

**Direct correspondence to: West Georgia College, Carrollton, Georgia 30118.

1 For a general introduction to the literature of hazard impacts, see Dennis S. Mileti
and others. Human Systems in Extreme Environments: A Sociological Perspective (Boul-
der, 1975). For an introduction to such studies regarding the Third World, William I.
Torry, "Natural Disasters, Social Structure, and Change in Traditional Societies," Journal
of Asian and African Studies (July-October, 1978), 13: 167-183. For Latin America, Ce-
sar Caviedes, "Natural Hazards in Latin America: A survey and Discussion," in Tom
Martinson and Gary Elbow (eds.), Geographic Research on Latin America (Conference of
Latin Americanist Geographers, 1981), pp. 280-294.

2 This enumeration comes from the author's copies of index cards from the Archivo
General in Guatemala City and from Lawrence Feldman's essay elsewhere in this volume.

3 For details of methodology, see Theodore K. Rabb, "Climate and Society in History:
A Research Agenda," in Robert Chen and other (eds.), Social Science Research and Cli-
mate Change: An Interdisciplinary Appraisal (Dordrecht, 1983), pp. 62-76 and Robert H.
Claxton, "Climate and History: From Speculation to Systematic Study," The Historian
(February, 1983), 45(2): 220-236.

139

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 25 (1986)

long term hazard mitigation.4 Among the centers devoted to this
sort of investigation are the Center for Technology, Environment,
and Development at Clark University, and the Natural Hazards
Research and Applications Information Center at the University
of Colorado/ Boulder.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT PAST WEATHER
IN GUATEMALA

A variety of documentary sources reveal information about
drought and precipitation patterns from the mid- 1500s.5 These
data considerably extend the instrument-based record which the
Guatemalan Meteorological Observatory has kept since 1925. Of
course, there are problems associated with each type of earlier
source.

Chroniclers, for example, drew together oral traditions and
written information for both religious and secular purposes. In
Guatemala, Francisco Vasquez, wrote in the 17th century; Fran-
cisco Ximenez, in the 18th, and Domingo Juarros, in the 19th.
While they did cite memorable weather-based emergencies, they
did not include year-by-year time series.

One category of official source, certainly not originally
designed to be a weather record, nevertheless provided somewhat
of a checklist for years from 1641 to 1808. This is a collection of
exoneration petitions from Indian communities for temporary ex-
emption from paying tribute because of hardships. There is no as-
surance, however, that all of these documents have survived. Like
many other aspects of the colonial era, existing documents may be
incomplete. Since droughts or floods were not a habitual com-

4 Nature alone cannot be blamed for hazard impacts reaching disaster proportions
Anders Wijkman and Lloyd Timberlake, Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Acts of Man?
(Earthscan, 1984).

5 This writer does not wish to convey an entirely Europe-centered prejudice. There has
been variability in weather and climate throughout geologic time. Indians experienced such
variability before the Spanish arrived.

Archaeologists are beginning to recognize long-term climatic trends. Their evidence
includes: limnological studies of rising and falling shorelines, modern water levels in rela-
tion to the age of dikes or location of monuments known to have been constructed in a
certain past era, and the changing amounts of particular mollusks or fish in midden. See
William Folen, "The Importance of Coba in Maya History," in Folan and others (eds.),
Coba: The Classic Maya Metropolis (New York, 1983), pp. 17-18; Joel Gunn and Rich-
ard E. W.Adams, "Climatic Change, Culture and Civilization in North America," World
Archaeology (June, 1981), 13: 87-100, especially pp. 94-96; Bruce Dahlin, "Climate and
Prehistory on the Yucatan Peninsula," Climatic Change (1983), 5: 245-263; Payson
Sheets, Archaeological Studies of Disaster: Their Range and Value (Boulder: University
of Colorado Natural Hazard Working Paper No. 38, 1980), pp. 19 and 25-29.

140

plaint, one may conclude that the disasters reported in this man-
ner were not contrived.

One possible way to verify the exoneration series is to ex-
amine what remains of yearly tax payment records that Indian
communities were required to keep. The Indians' payment in kind
depended upon weather-sensitive crop yields. A number of village
records have survived, some extending for over a hundred years.

Modern investigators also have insight into past, pre-instru-
mentation weather conditions through reports sent in from re-
gional administrators. In the 1570s and 1740s, the Spanish Crown
ordered the collection of crude estimates of temperature, humid-
ity, rainfall, and wind characteristics for each administrative unit.
These relaciones geograficas indicate an early interest in accumu-
lating scientific data for policy-making, but these particular re-
ports simply reflected perceived normal conditions and not varia-
bility. When changing conditions warranted, however, the central
authorities asked for hazard impact reports.6

The records of the capital city government are another source
of weather information over long periods of time. The minutes of
the city council meetings {Adas de Cabildo) reveal the situation
within the capital itself. Correspondence and directives regarding
food supplies {abastos) contain evidence about other places which
provided the city with foodstuffs.

Two secondary sources offer assistance in locating primary
documents and in making the sequence of events more unified.
These are histories of the colonial capital. Joaquin Pardo was the
organizer of the Archivo General de Centro-America. His com-
prehensive chronological outline history of Antigua refers to un-
usual meteorological phenomena. Likewise, Christopher Lutz
mentions weather-based hazards in his demographic history of the
colonial capital.

The present body of knowledge regarding pre-twentieth cen-
tury weather in Guatemala is incomplete. Apparently increasing
numbers of droughts or floods over a half-century might demon-
strate a long term trend in a meteorological sense. On the other
hand, this could also be, in reality, testimony that more people,

6 A similar source which this writer did not explore is the collection of biannual re-
ports the Audiencia (highest court) of Guatemala required for about a decade in the eight-
eenth century. The reports included annual charts. These compare all the provinces of Cen-
tral America with regard to the relative abundance of both commercial and subsistence
crops, rainfall, and health of inhabitants. Impressionistic words like "abundant" or
"scanty" substitute for statistics.

141

who were less able to cope with hazards, were living in arid re-
gions or flood plains. It is also possible that documents indicative
of one particular weather phenomenon were better preserved than
others for some non-weather-related reason. Confirmation of pre-
sent evidence with additional data from more localities and from
non-documentary sources such as analyses of sediments will re-
lieve doubt.

Conclusions about the nature of weather in colonial
Guatamala are tentative. Nevertheless, weather-based hazards did
exist. Conclusions about their impact have greater certainity.

"NORMAL" WEATHER IN GUATEMALA

Any attempt to reconstruct the past climatic patterns for a
given place must begin with an understanding of the usual annual
weather and agriculture cycle. Ordinarily, invierno (or winter)
around Guatemala City runs from May until October. The May
rains often begin with hail storms. Normally, two dry periods in-
terrupt this rainy season one at the June solstice {yeranito de
San Juan) and the other during the late July/early August "dog
days" (canicula). The invierno concludes after the equinoctial
storms of September/October. Traditionally, subsistence planting
occurred in February or March (called candelaria, after Candle
Mass, 2 February) and in the dry periods of winter (identified as
apantes, tunalmiles or tanalmiles sowings).

In Guatemala, as anywhere else, words indicating relative de-
grees of precipitation intensity have developed over generations.
These have comparable English equivalents: dew (rocio), mist or
sprinkle (llovizna or lloviznita), drizzle (gariia), shower (lluvia),
and intense downpour or cloudburst (aguacero, temporal, tempes-
tad, or culebrina). If winds accompained the last in this series,
terms like vendaval, torment a, or huracan would be used al-
though huracan does not necessarily translate as "hurricane". The
adjective recio (severe or rigourous) or torrencial (abundant)
often accompany the designations aguarcero or vendaval. Such
storms occasionally produced flooding, described as: creciente
(freshet or sudden rise in stream level), desabordamiento or ane-
gacibn (stream overflowing its banks), avenida or corriente (force
of water cutting a new channel), or simply inundacibn or diluvio.

Colonial Guatemalans, likewise, had several workds or
phrases to describe drought. These included seca, sequia, se-

142

quedad, escasez de lluvias, falta de lluvias, la falta de invierno,
ausencia del invierno, and sometimes esterilidad or carestla which
indicated resulting crop loss or shortages. One classification at-
tempt differentiates among three types of situations with little
rainfall: climatological drought (normally low precipitation), me-
teorological drought (abnormally low precipitation), and socio-po-
litical drought (shortages resulting from poor management or un-
realistic expectations).7

This paper identifies those episodes in which rainfall was
signficantly less, or more, than the usual annual cycle. The signfi-
cance of the indefinite quantity of precipitation, of course, de-
pended upon the level of preparedness, technology, and scientific
sophisitication of the people of Guatemala in colonial times. The
documentary record does not give us the precision instruments
could have, but it does reveal weather as variable and having an
impact upon human lives.

DROUGHT IN COLONIAL GUATEMALA

There were at least nineteen drought years in Guatemala af-
ter the Spanish Conquest and before Independence. (See Table 1.)
Less is known about the occurrence of this phenomenon before
1650. Demographer Christopher Lutz, however, has concluded:
"A series of epidemics, described as pests, intermittently struck
the city [of Antigua] and the surrounding region between 1585
and 1632 but their impact appears to have been somewhat soft-
ened by the absence of accompanying severe droughts and serious
grain shortages."8 Data for the second half of the eighteenth cen-
tury may be incomplete. Even so, the available documentation in-
dicates at least one drought year during most other decades.
Three decades were especially "dry": the 1690s, the 1730s, and
the early 1 800s. The droughts of those times also affected exten-
sive amounts of territory.

FLOODS IN COLONIAL GUATEMALA

At least twenty-four rain-based emergencies are documented
for the colonial period in Guatemala. In eight instances (See Ta-

7 Ray Linsley, "Social and Political Aspects of Drought," Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society (June, 1982), 63 (6): 586-591.

8 Christopher Hayden Lutz, "Santiago de Guatemala, 1541-1773: The Socio-demo-
graphic History of a Spanish American Colonial City," (2 vols.; Ph.D. dissertation, His-
tory, University of Wisconsin, 1976), I, 256.

143

ble IIA), the year is known but not the precise day(s). In four
cases (See Table IIB), severe storms occurred early in the in-
vierno. More commonly, the heaviest rains came in late Septem-
ber and early October, the tapayaguas or the cordonazo of St.
Francis. (October 4 is the feast day of St. Francis.) In at least ten
documented episodes (See Table IIIC) serious flooding occurred
late in the rainy season.

It is possible to make other general observations from what is
known about each flooding. Half were reported in or near Anti-
gua, which fact no doubt reflects the origin of the documents more
than weather patterns; half the flood disasters occurred elsewhere.
One-third of the floods resulted from storms which lasted for more
than one day. High winds accompanied at least five of the storms.
In three years 1652, 1691, and 1736 both flooding and
droughts are recorded.

IMPACT OF DROUGHT UPON COLONIAL GUATEMALA
Initial Evidence of Disaster

Food Shortages. This was the most obvious impact of
drought. A famine in Antigua resulted, for example, when the
1563 drought and wind damage destroyed crops of wheat and corn
and even plantains and roots.9 Later, in 1746, Chiquimula resi-
dents were left with only sugar cane and wild roots due to "the
absence of winter."10

Migration. There is no record of any planned evacuation due
to drought in coloinial Guatemala. Nevertheless, desperate people
did flee from dry areas to search for food. This population move-
ment was especially evident in eastern Guatemala. Because of the
1652 drought, Indians left Jocotan when the Chiquimula River
failed to rise sufficiently to irrigate their cacao. The migrating In-
dians went to other towns to find a substitute means to pay their
tribute.11 A similar situation existed 68 years later. Some 230
families fled towns on the eastern frontier in a desperate search
for food during the 1720 drought.12

* Francisco Vasquez, Crbnica de la provincia del Santisimo Nombre de Jesus de
Guatemala (4 vols.; Guatemala, 1937-1944), I. 154.

10 Archivo General de Centro-America. Tributos: exoneraciones. A 3.16 expediente
42269 legajo 2887. Also, A 3.16 expediente 31617 legajo 2076 and A. 3.16 expendiente
17630 legajo 944.

11 Correspondence from Lawrence Feldman to the author.

12 Tributos: exoneraciones. A. 3.16 expediente 40860 legajo 2817. A map of adminis-

144

Mitigation Efforts

Rogations. Residents of colonial Guatemala regarded the
Virgin Mary, in the form of Nuestra Sehora del Socorro, as their
special patroness of rain. Her image was venerated at the start of
the growing season and also carried in outdoor processions if ade-
quate rains were not later forthcoming. The minutes of a 1746
session of the city council expalin that, according to Leviticus,
Chapter 26, rains came to those who kept the commandments of
Jehovah who made the "heavens as iron and the earth as brass"
for those who disobeyed.13 It seemed logical for the people of An-
tigua Guatemala and other towns to emulate the children of Israel
in an act of penance to bring rains. This brought apparent results
often enough so as to confirm belief. Chronicler, Vasquez, for ex-
ample, describes 1686 worshippers as having to discontinue their
procession in Almolonga due to a cloudburst.14

Actions Against Speculators. One municipal government
document from a dry 18th century year complained that specula-
tors were often as much a cause of higher wheat prices in Antigua
as were poor harvests. Would-be speculators even bribed those
who had grain to sell in order to corner the market. In response,
the Church threatened to excommunicate engrossers who were ac-
cumulating scarce stocks while the price rose.15

The civil authorities took additional steps. In 1748 and 1753,
the chief judicial officer in Antigua issued injunctions against
profiteers leaving the city.16 The judiciary carefully investigated
the nature of grain sales. Anyone who had intimidated Indians
into selling meager surpluses cheaply was subject to specified pun-
ishments: for a Spaniard, a fine of 200 pesos and two months in
jail; for a mestizo or mulatto, a flogging and twelve hours in the
pillory before the imprisonment. The court investigators offered
rewards to informants.

Emergency Food Distribution. Due to shortages in 1 746, the
capital city administration acquired 1 0,000 fanegas (about 10,500

trative subdivisions of eighteenth century Guatemala is found is Francisco Solano, Los Ma-
yas del sigh XVIII (Madrid, 1974).

13 Libros de Cabildos 32 (September 9, 1746), folios 138, 138 vuelto, 139, 139 vuelto,
and 140. A 1.22 expediente 11788 legajo 1794.

14 Vasquez, Crbnica, IV, 252.

18 Ayuntamiento: Abastos. A 1.2 expediente 575 legajo 29.

16 Ayuntamiento: Abastos. A 1.2 expediente 24975 legajo 2820 and A 3.3 expediente
34790 legajo 2360. Jose Joaquin Pardo Gallardo, Efemerides para escribir la historia de
la. . .cuidad de. . .Guatemala (Guatemala, 1944), p. 207-208.

145

bushels) of corn from large landowners. The municipality distrib-
uted this food "to the poor people of the city and towns of the
Valley of Guatemala. 'U7 Slowness of travel, poor harbors, and in-
adequate roads prevented this mitigation device from being very
common in the colonial period.

Second Sowings. Generally, the colonial population depended
upon a local food supply. In mid-winter (August), 1736, the presi-
dent of the audiencia ordered all the towns of the "province of
Guatemala" to plant new corn and bean crops, the first sowing
having been lost." That the highest official took action implies an
extensive concern over the matter. Subsequently, during the fol-
lowing September, the Antigua authorities experimented with
maize plantings in the humid lands around Lake Amatitlan.18
(Other locales regularly planted twice each year.)

Tax Exemptions. By reason of royal decree in 1 549, officials
could grant Indians exemptions from annual tribute in the event
of a harvest failure. Documents reveal that Indians petitioned to
take advantage of this relief in 1694, 1720, 1736, 1746, and 1803,
due to drought.

Although most of the extant evidence reflects 18th century
practices, the mitigation efforts were probably similar in colonial
Guatemala in earlier times. In the 19th century, when a more
complex infrastructure began to develop, alternative means of
drought mitigation were available. These included emergency food
purchases abroad to sell at cost in Guatemala, temporary suspen-
sion of tariffs on imported foodstuffs, national statistical invento-
ries of resources available, exemptions from road service or mili-
tary service to provide workers for second sowings, and fines for
not complying with central directives to replant food crops.

Longer Term Effects of Drought

Disease. In his extensive demographic study of Antigua (San-
tiago de Guatemala), Lutz identified 51 references to epidemic
disease. Of these, thirty occur between 1650 and 1769, a time seg-
ment which includes the period for which colonial weather docu-
mentation is most complete. In eight cases, an epidemic occurred
in or near the colonial capital during a drought year which this

17 Pardo, Efem'erides p. 198.

18 Libros de Cabildos 31 (August 23, 25, 27, and September 4, 1736), folios 50, 50 v,
51, 52, 52 v, 53 53 v, and 54. A 1.2.2 expediente 11787 legajo 1793. Lutz, "Santaigo de
Guatemala," II, 591 (Note 35).

146

author has identified, or in the year immediately following a
drought year. Those eight cases correspond to fifty percent of the
documented dry years. They include 1660 (calenturas), 1669
("much sickness"), 1686-1687 (typhus and/or pneumonic plague),
1694 (smallpox), 1746 (typhus), 1748 (measles), 1749 {calen-
turas), and 1752 (smallpox).19

In a manner similar to that of Lutz, Veblen documented
twelve epidemics in highland Totonicapan between 1650 and the
end of the colonial period. Four of these also correspond to known
drought episodes: 1804 (typhus), 1694-1696 (smallpox), 1746 (ty-
phus), 1804 (typhus and measles), and 1811-1812 (typhus).20 In
addition, both researchers found that an epidemic accompanied
the 1563 drought. This author also found descriptions in Guate-
malan sources of disease and drought in 1677 ("sharp and mortal
fevers") and 1803 (typhus).

There is, therefore, a direct correlation between the condition
of drought and widespread illness in twelve out of nineteen docu-
mented colonial era drought situations. Food shortages and migra-
tion were the initial evidence of drought's impact. Food shortages
undoubtedly resulted in malnutrition, leaving large numbers of
people more susceptible to disease. Likewise, people migrating in
search of food inadvertently carried microbes with them.

Revenue Irregularity. Severe drought could disrupt revenue
collection directly and indirectly. Drought lowered agricultural
production. Indirectly, death and debilitation due to malnutrition
or epidemics also impacted upon the productivity of the labor
force. Drought was a factor in about half the recorded instances
of revenue falls where time series are available for study.

Wortman offers data regarding the annual income from the
church tithe in the diocese and archdiocese of Guatemala.21 He
has annual data, for example, for 1650-1700. During that half
century, there were sixteen years when the tithe revenue is known
to have been less than the year before. During the same half cen-
tury, there were seven drought years. The tithe fell subsequent to
the 1652-3 and 1660 episodes and fell during dry 1686. Revenue
remained constant in 1669, 1677, and 1691 when compared to the

1B Lutz, "Santiago de Guatemala," II, 743-752.

20 Thomas Veblen, "Native Population Decline in Totonicapan, Guatemala," in Rob-
ert Carmack and others (eds.) Historical Demography of Highland Guatemala (Albany,
1982), p. 97.

21 Miles Wortman, Government and Society in Central America, 1680-1840 (New
York, 1982), p. 280.

147

year immediately preceding each case. Only in the 1694 drought
did the tithe collections register an increase. Tithe data for
drought years after 1700 are missing or inconclusive.

Feldman collected tribute payment data from Camotan (See
Table III), including the 1730s and 1740s. There, tribute totals
fell subsequent to the 1724, 1746, and (apparently) 1752
droughts. The 1735-36 record indicates a decline. Only in the
1748 instance was there a steady revenue increase during and af-
ter the drought year. The tribute declines in 1731 and 1742 were
not directly related to drought. Drought documentation in notably
absent between 1753 and 1802. Consequently, no further mean-
ingful correlation is possible at this point.

There is an explanation for the 1748 exception in the Feld-
man data. As Wortman explains, Spanish legislation in 1747 re-
quired that tribute be paid in coin rather than in goods. Since
Indians could work for wages paid in coin, the government pre-
sumed that drought would no longer disrupt the revenue flow.
Such a provision probably brought more Indians into the money
economy.22 Even so, tribute did fall again following the 1803
drought and during dry 1822 in Camotan.

RAINSTORMS AND IMPACT OF FLOODING UPON
COLONIAL GUATEMALA

Initial Evidence of Disaster

Flood disasters occurred much more rapidly than those
caused by drought. Floods resulted in destruction of dwellings,
loss of foodstuffs, death, and the disruption of transportation. (See
Table II for locations.)

Destruction of Dwellings. The most commonly reported ini-
tial evidence of flood disaster were descriptions of housing loss.
Homes were damaged by wind or rain during severe storms (1652,
1736, 1765, 1796), toppled by mudslides (1541 and 1749), or sub-
merged or swept away by rising water (1762, 1773, 1796, and
1807).

Loss of Foodstuffs. Disastrous impact upon crops was equally
common. Sometimes wind or rain destroyed crops immediately
(1632, 1641, 1741, 1762, 1773). Another related problem was the
saturation of the soil with so much moisture that a second plant-

22 Ibid., p. 174.

148

ing would not germinate (1652, 1762, and 1796). Still another
disaster related to agriculture was damage to mills; reports of un-
serviceable mills and a reference to relief activity in 1762 suggests
that this was a more common concern. Finally, flooding sometimes
claimed the lives of farm animals: 1541 (oxen and cattle), 1641
(hens, mules, and horses), 1762 (mules, horses) and 1796
("beasts" and 200 head of cattle).

Death. Human life was lost in floods as well. The 1541 de-
struction of an early capital site for example killed an undeter-
mined number of blacks, 600 Indians, and 100 Spanish settlers.
"Several persons" perished in the 1736 flood. The June, 1765
storm left "many dead".

Transport Disruption. Heavy rains and flooding also dis-
rupted transportation, either by carrying bridges away or washing
out unpaved roads. In October 1762, the swollen Motagua re-
moved the stone bridge at San Martin. (Ironically, the force of
flood waters that year also damaged the San Juan Gascon and
Pampatic aqueducts.) The 1796 cordonazo took the de los Es-
clavos and Rio Tigre at Atiquipaque bridges. Likewise, the July
storm of 1807 disposed of two bridges near Quezaltenango.

The rainy season of 1756 resulted in no flood catastrophe in
any one particular locale. It did, however, produce the first gen-
eral directive (this writer found) to local administrators through-
out the "Kingdom" of Guatemala to repair the roads where the
rains had left gulleys or flooding had carried in debris. Perhaps,
by the middle of the eighteenth century, the volume of inter-re-
gional or international commerce the sufficient to merit the con-
cern of the central authorities. The recomposition of roads may
have been a local matter earlier, but it became a frequent order
from the capital by the middle of the nineteenth century.

Mitigation Efforts

Recourse to Religion. Following the 1541 mudslides, the
Bishop led processions for four days and recommended fasting. He
also removed mourning symbols lest Indians think the Spanish
were helpless. The early settlers attributed this first recorded dis-
aster to divine judgment. In a similar manner, Archbishop Pedro
Cortes y Larraz commented that the 1765 Zacapa flood had its
source in a "flood of sins," citing Joel, Chapter l.23 Records for

23 Felix Gutierrez and Ernesto Ballesteros, "The 1541 Earthquake [sic]: Dawn of

149

other floods are silent on this theme. Unlike severe drought, public
prayers to stop excessive rain were rare.

Surveys. Following the October 1652 storm, the Antigua City
Council resolved to investigate other adjacent towns to see if
heavy winds and rain has resulted in damage elsewhere.24 The
record shows that the late-season storm of 1749 produced a simi-
lar survey.25 In 1762, the Chimaltenango authorities ordered mili-
tia captains to send them estimates of loss of human life, homes,
mills, crops, cattle, and other damage.26

Emergency Food Acquisitions. The 1762 rains ruined so
much of the expected crops that, on December 1 , the City Council
authorized purchase of wheat from Los Altos. Historians usually
recall 1773 as the year of the earthquakes which brought still an-
other relocation of the capital. In so doing, they overlook the in-
tense rainstorms of June which produced flooding. This factor,
along with a locust infestation, meant food shortages even before
the disastrous earthquake struck. In August 1773, the municipal
authorities collected what food there was locally and rationed it.
(In June, there had been a request from Los Altos for corn to
replace what locusts and rain had destroyed there earlier.)27

Public Works. As a result of the 1749 flood, the capital au-
thorities made plans for a drainage canal to the Magdelena, a
river on the opposite side of the city from the Pensativa.28 When
flooding occurred again thirteen years later, the City Council
commissioned an engineer, Luis Diaz de Navarro, and public
works administrator Francisco de Estrada to formulate a more
comprehensive plan to avoid future disasters.29 (Of course, the
earthquake of 1773 resulted in the relocation of the capital to its
present site.) In 1798, authorities in Quezaltenango were making
plans for a drainage canal because the rainly season had left a
lake in their city each year since the flood of 1789.30

Latin American Journalism," Journalism History (Autumn, 1979), 6: 79-83; Pedro Cortes
y Larraz, Description geografico-moral de la dibcesis de Goathemala (2 vols.; Guatemala,
1958), I, 47-48.

24 Libros de Cabildos 16 (October 13, 1652), folio 193. A 1.22 expediente 11772
legajo 1778.

25 Real provision sobre la inundacion de 1749. A 1.24 expediente 28865 legajo 2817.
28 Informe sobre un temporal en Chimaltenango. A. 1.21 expediente 15249 legajo

2141.

27 Pardo, Efemerides, pp. 245-247.

28 See Note 25.

29 Pardo, Efemerides, p. 223.

30 A. 1.21 expendiente 8105, legajo 389.

150

Tax Exemptions. Drought was, by far, the most frequent
reason that Indians petitioned for tax relief. There are, however,
two documented examples of flood-based requests. In 1641,
Soconusco residents complained that wind-driven rains had
destoyed their cacao trees. In 1808, the people of Santa Cruz de
Laguna, on the shore of Lake Atitlan, petitioned for exemption
from tribute because a flood had destoyed their homes and church
the previous year.31

Cabildos Abiertos. The Spanish-American equivalent of a
New England town meeting is usually associated with the emer-
gency the disruption of royal authority brought which led to dec-
larations of independence. Disasters stemming from natural
hazards also occasioned cabildos abiertos. In 1541, mudslides af-
ter three days of rainfall inundated the Ciudad Vieja or Al-
molonga site of Guatemala City. Survivors met, voted to relocate,
and chose a committee to examine alternative sites. When a sec-
ond meeting failed to achieve unanimity, the co-governors selected
the Antigua site.32 This event also produced the first "newspaper"
in the New World.33

Longer Term Effects of Heavy Rains and Flooding

Social Stratification/ Relocation of Settlements. The 1541
storm and flood decimated the Spanish district of the Almolonga
site but the Mexican Indian barrio remained intact. When the
surviving residents moved to the Antigua site, the authorities gave
greater attention to awarding the best property to the most impor-
tant people.34 Two centuries later, Archbishop Cortes reported
other disaster-induced social schisms. When the residents of
Petapa rebuilt following the 1762 flood, Indians chose to live in
"Nuevo Petapa" and the Ladinos established the separate village
of La Conception. Similarly, in 1765, he found the poorest stayed
and tried to rebuild on the original site of Chiquimula while
others started anew an hour's journey away.36

Disease. Both Lutz and Veblen, reporting on Antigua and
Totonicapan respectively, list three epidemics in years in which

31 Tributos: exoneraciones. A. 1.24 expendiente 10203 legajo 1559; A 3.16 ex-
pendiente 4988 legajo 248.

33 Lutz, "Santiago de Guatemala," I, 64-65, 81-81, and 90-94.

33 Gutierrez and Ballesteros, see Note 23.

34 Lutz, "Santiago de Guatemala," I. 64 and 94.

39 Cortes y Larraz, Description, I, 47 and 276-277.

151

flooding occurred or else in the year immediately following: 1631-
1632, 1686-1687, and 1741. In addition, Veblen found Totoni-
capan post-flood year epidemics in 1541-1545 and 1795-1797;
Lutz mentions a 1749 epidemic. In virtually every case tabardillo
is the cited disease. This is usually translated "typhus." Spots or
rash are symptomatic of both typhus and typhoid, but typhoid,
rather than typhus, thrives in contaminated water as flooding may
have left. In any case, the majority of epidemics which Lutz and
Veblen identify did not occur during or immediately after years
with documented heavy rains or floods.36

Revenue Irregularity. Wortman's compilation of annual in-
come from the church tithe in the diocese and archdioces of Gua-
temala covers the years 1626 to 1820, but his tabulation is incom-
plete. His longest continuous annual series is for the 1645 to 1713
period. During that time, there were 29 years in which tithe in-
come was less than the year immediately preceding. There are
four documented rain or flood episodes during this time. Two of
these (1685 and 1688) came in years preceding revenue falls. Two
other (1652 and 1691) do not correlate with a decline in the trib-
ute. The subsequent record does, however, show both heavier rains
and revenue declines in 1756, 1762, and 1807.37

The Feldman data (See Table III) are more sensitive. His
data suggest a fall in tribute subsequent to 1741, 1749, 1756, and
1796, as well as during 1773. There was a leveling off of tribute
revenues after 1736 and 1762. There was an apparent increase
only after 1765. The possible conseqences of events in 1789 and
1807, years with documented episodes of heavier rain remain un-
certain. In some ways, conclusions from the Feldman data are
more impressionistic than precise.

Soil Erosion. MacLeod traces the manner in which Spanish
practices, combined with heavy rains, produced an enormous ero-
sion problem. Urban markets demanded wood for charcoal and
furniture. Cacao and sugar planters cleared some woods to grow
their commercial crops. The Spanish also introduced sheep-graz-
ing and deep ploughing for wheat fields. Not only did these new
modes of agriculture tax the soil, Spanish expansion on flatlands
drove the Indian cultivators to steeper slopes where the soil was
thinner. As time passed, diminished ground cover and increased

36 See Note 20.

37 See Note 21.

152

hardpan exposure meant that rainwater could not be absorbed as
easily as it once had been. Flood water filled city streets with silt
which Indians were forced to clean out. Beginning in 1699, the
capital city authorities ordered Indians to cease cultivation of ero-
sion-prone slopes.38 Such proclamations did not end the problem.
In 1762, the successors to those officials were still complaining
about landslides due to Indians' trying to grow crops on hillsides.39

GENERAL SUMMARY

Tentative Conclusions. Toward the end of the colonial period,
the Archbishop of Guatemala wrote of "deadly circumstances
never far away, through which a poor family can see itself re-
duced in a single year of calamity and shortage in the case of
epidemic and in a single moment, in which a frost or a severe
rainstorm wipes out its tiny plantings." He therefore endorsed di-
versification of the economy through small scale cattle breeding.40
Any Guatemalan who had survived to old age in colonial times
would have been confronted several weather-based emergencies,
with attendant difficulties, in his or her lifetime.

The twin hazards of drought and flooding sometimes had
similar impacts; in some ways, their consequences were quite dif-
ferent. Evidence for drought came gradually, while flooding was
sudden. The immediate impact of drought was a food shortage,
followed by malnutrition. The impact of flooding was more di-
verse; loss of foodstuffs, destruction of homes, and disruption of
transport, and often drownings. Even the means of food loss va-
ried: soil saturation, death of animals, and wrecking of mills.
Droughts could stimulate migration; floods sometimes led to vol-
untary resettlement. Although authorities found evidence of divine
judgment in both kinds of disaster, there was much more frequent
recourse to prayer during droughts. In both types of emergencies,
it was rare for the government to distribute food. Central authori-
ties awaited local reports during a drought but they were more
likely to order immediate damage surveys following a severe
storm. Petitions for tax exemptions were much more common af-

38 Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America: A Socioeconomic History, 1520-
1720 (Berkeley, 1973), pp. 305-307. Erosion (p. 95) contributed to the decline of the
Soconusco cacao industry.

38 Pardo, Efemerides, p. 222.

40 Archbishop Ramon Casaus y Torres, Pastoral Letter, September 9, 1811, Gaceta
de Guatemala (October 12, 1811), p. 269.

153

ter drought than after flooding. Indeed, their frequency may have
led to legislation forcing Indians into a money economy. No public
works (like reservoirs) eased drought impacts, but drainage canals
were meant to control flooding. Droughts forced local authorities
to make certain decisions, while storm disasters opened the deci-
sion-making to all Spanish citizens. Diverse epidemics accompa-
nied or followed over two-thirds of the dry, hungry years, but
there was less of a correlation between heavy rains and disease.
Likewise, flooding was less of a factor in revenue declines than
was drought. The colonial documents refer to soil erosion due to
water, but they never speak of wind erosion in times of drought.
In comparative perspective, Lutz concludes that since the colonial
capital had a smaller population than did Mexico City and be-
cause the Guatemalan droughts were rarely as severe, Santiago de
Guatemala did not experience the food riots that 17th century
Mexico had.41

Unanswered Questions. This paper suggests numerous sub-
jects for further investigation. Droughts apparently had a stronger
impact than rainstorms or floods. Additional study could reveal
even greater consequences of drought by way of "ripple effects."
If drought contributed to human malnutrition it may also have
affected the animals upon which people depended. Future histori-
ans may want to reconstruct the sizes of past animal populations.
Nothing is known about the impact of drought on fish, forests,
small-scale beekeeping, and wildlife in colonial days. Efforts to in-
crease the food supply during one particular drought year may
have created a surplus with consequent lower prices the following
year. In times of higher food costs, people may have consumed
less of something else. Hard times delayed marriages and in-
creased indebtedness.

We need more local history studies to verify weather, reve-
nue, and epidemic time series and to determine how widespread
drought or rainstorm impacts were. Such data are especially
needed for the 1500s and 1600s. Proxy data such as evidence of
fluctuating lake levels should verify document-based conclusions.
Aside from weather history, there are historical possibilities in
changes in diet, the nature of local officialdom, the development of
milling, and the growth of internal communication networks.

Relationship to Modern Theory. The historic examples from

Lutz, "Santiago de Guatemala," II, 563.

154

colonial Guatemala offer case studies which support contemporary
theories about social organizations confronting natural hazards.
Some impacts produced minor stress while others were cata-
strophic, along the continuum Foster plotted.42 Some of the exam-
ples in this paper contain sufficient detail to identify "stages" of
impact from precipitating event to readjustment, as Turner rec-
ommended.43 According to Whittow, there are fundamentally
three approaches to the problem of drought anywhere: scientific,
behavioral, and technological. The Guatemalans relied on the be-
havioral method.44 Smith and Tobin describe "structural" and
"non-structural" adjustments to the flood hazard. Colonial
Guatemalans used only the simplest forms of both: engineering
schemes and devices to sustain loss-bearing.46 Predictably, the co-
lonial Guatemalan response to disaster was "Latin" in Roth's
scheme rather than "Western" or "Eastern."46 Colonial Guate-
mala was probably a "Type II" society in Russell Dynes' analytic
model.47

4* Harold Foster, "Assessing Disaster Magnitude: A Social Science Approach," The
Professional Geographer (August, 1976), 28 (3): 241-247.

43 Barry A. Turner, "The Development of Disasters a seqence model for the analy-
sis of the origins of disasters," Sociological Review (1976), 24: 753-774.

44 John Whittow, Disasters: The Anatomy of Environmental Hazards (Athens, Geor-
gia, 1979), especially pp. 300-309.

48 Keith Smith and Graham Tobin, Human Adjustment to the Flood Hazard
(London, 1979). See also: Harold Cochrane, Natural Hazards and Their Distributive Ef-
fects (University of Colorado Institute of Behavioral Science, 1975).

46 Robert Roth, "Cross Cultural Perspectives on Disaster Response," American Be-
havioral Scientist (January- February, 1970), 13(3): 440-451.

47 Russell R. Dynes, "The Comparative Study of Disaster: A Social Organizational
Approach," Mass Emergencies (1975), 1: 21-31.

155

Table I

TIME SERIES OF DROUGHTS IN THE
HISTORY OF COLONIAL GUATEMALA

Year Description: Extent in Time and Space

Documentation

1563 No rain in vicinity of Antigua between March
and mid-August, except for June 30 (not certain
if correction made for 1582 calendar change)

1623 Drought in Jocotan parish (Chiquimala)

1660 "Gran seca" evident by mid-August around
Antigua

1669 Antigua records reveal much sickness due to a
lack of rainfall, causing dry maize fields,
especially at the start of Guatemalan winter

1677 "Gran seca"; extreme dryness

1686 Extremely dry and extended canicula

1691 Alarming lack of rain in Antigua and in areas
which supplied the capital

1694 "la falta de invierno" in the Valley of Guatemala

720 Chiquimula province reported "grandisima
esterilidad de frutos por la ninguna lluvia"

1721 Various towns in Guatemala

1734 ". . .drought. . .struck throughout Central
America. . . ."

Vasquez,
Cronica, I, 154

Correspondence
from Dr. Lawrence
Feldman

Libros de Cabildos,
17, folio 271 vuelto

Lutz, "Santiago de
Guatemala," II,

747

Lutz, "Santiago de
Guatemala," II,
226 Vasquez,
Cronica, IV, 252

Vasquez, Cronica,
IV, 252

Libros de Cabildos,
22, folio 152 vuelto

Tributos:
exoneraciones, A
3.16 expediente
40723 legajo 2811

Tributos:
exoneraciones, A
3.16 expediente
40860 legajo 2817;
Feldman
correspondence

Feldman
correspondence

Wortman,
Government and
Society, p. 93

156

1736 No rain in Antigua area at least between July 12
and mid-August; crop lost due to drought near
Zacapa

Ibid.; Libros de
Cabildos, 31, folios
50-54; Tributos:
exoneraciones, A
3.16 expediente
17575 legajo 942
folio 35

1739

". . .drought.
America. . .

.struck throughout Central

Wortman,
Government and
Society, p. 93

1746 Low rainfall in Antigua area; "ausencia del
invierno" in Chiquimula; reports of drought in
Chiquimula de la Sierra, Santa Elena, San
Esteban, and San Joseph

Libros de Cabildos,
32, folios 130-141;
Tributos:
exoneraciones, A
3.16 expediente
42269 legajo 2887;
Feldman
correspondence

1748 Drought in Jocotan parish (Chiquimula)

Feldman
correspondence

1752 Drought in Antigua area

Pardo,
Efemerides,
pp. 207-208

1765 Chiquimula de la Sierra (Drought followed
earthquake)

Legajo 543 Archivo
de Sevilla
(Feldman)

1803 Culmination of rainfall noticeably below Feldman

expectations for five years in three places correspondence;

(Jocotan, San Juan Hermita, and Camotan) in Tributos:
Chiquimula; rain late in coming in Totonicapan in exoneraciones, A
1804 3.16 expediente

4881 legajo 244;
Gaceta de
Guatemala
(October 1, 1804),
p. 455 (reads 355)

1810 Culmination of three years of inadequate rainfall
in Jalapa

Ayuntamiento:
Abastos A. 1.2.11
expediente 30881
legajo 4015

157

1822 "Escasez de las lluvias" in Verapaz, Chiquimula, Ayuntamiento:
and towns which supplied Guatemala city with Abastos
food B 5.7

expediente
1816 legajo
66 folios 6, 7, and
8; Wortman
Government and
Society, p. 245

158

Table II

DOCUMENTED FLOODS IN COLONIAL GUATEMALA

Table IIA

YEARS KNOWN TO HAVE HAD FLOODS, WITHOUT THE PRECISE
DAYS IDENTIFIED

Year

Brief Description

1566 Pensativa floods Antigua

1632 Flood swept away houses and crops in Mixco

1685 Major flood in Antigua

1688 Comparable to 1566

1691 Major flood in Antigua

1749 Flooding in Chiquimula de la Sierra, Camotan,
and Jocotan

1756 Heavy rains throughout "kingdom" all season

1789 Rains produce a new lake in Quezaltenango

Source

Ximenez,
Historia Natural,
p. 163

Gage, New Survey,
p. 292

Pardo,
Efemerides, p. 100

Ximenez,
Historia Natural,
p. 163

Pardo,
Efemerides, p. 1 1 0

Feldman
correspondence

Archivo General A
1.22 legajo 1508
folio 313

Archivo General A
1.21.9 expediente
8105 legajo 389

159

Table IIB
EARLY SEASON, PRINCIPALLY MAY OR JUNE, RAIN STORMS

Year

Day

Description

Locale

Source

1736

June

recio temporal

Antigua

Juarros,
Conpendio, I,
p. 164

1765

2 & 4 June

huracan (2) &
gran tempestad
(4)

Chiquimula
and Zacapa

Cortes y

Larraz,

Descripcibn

geo-

graficomoral,

I, 276-7

1773

6-9 June &
30 July

intenso temporal

Antigua

Actas de
Cabildo, libro
49, folios 81
and 84

1789

27-28 May

huracan

Solola

Al.21.9
expediente
8105 legajo
389

1807

2-3 July

14 hour wind and
rain storm

Quezalte-
nango

Al.21.9
expediente
4981 legajo
200

160

Table IIC
NOTABLE LATE-SEASON GUATEMALAN RAIN STORMS

Year

Day

Description

Locale

Source

1541

8-10 (i.e.

rains, mudslides,

slopes of Mt.

Lutz,

19-21) Sept.

floods

Agua

"Santiago de
Guatemala'''
II, 64-65 &
81-2;

Gutierrez and
Ballesteros

1598

Post-

lluvia espesa; gran

between

Anales de los

Michaelmas

aguacero

Antigua and

Cakchiqueles,

(29 Sept.)

L. Atitlan

p. 188

1641

5 October

huracan con
abundancia de
aguas

Chiapas

A 1.24
expediente
10203 legajo
1559

1652

7-12 Oct.

vendaval;

Antigua;

Jose Milla

extraordinaria

Chiapas

His tor ia, II,

abundancia de

314

lluvias

1718

late Sept./

avenida

slopes of Mt.

Ximenez,

early Oct.

Agua

Historia
Natural

1741

late season

6 day storm

Escuintla

Lutz,

"Santiago de
Guatemala,"
II, 591 note

35

1749

21-22 Sept.

recio temporal and

Antigua &

Actas de

pensativa flood;

nearby

Cabildo; libro

flood

Chiquimula

33, folio 95 A
1.24 legajo
2817

expediente
28865;
Feldman
correspon-
dence

161

1762

7-11 Oct.

temporal and

Antigua

Actas de

22 Oct.

flood; temporal
and Motagua flood

Chimaltenango

Cabildo, libro
38, folios 87-
91 A 1.21.3
legajo 2141
expediente
15249

10-11 Oct.

Petapa flood

Canales

Cortes y
Larraz,
Descripcibn
geografico-
moral, I 47-8
& 96

1765

24 Oct.

intenso temporal

Antigua and
Zacapa

Actas de
Cabildo libro
41; Cortes y
Larraz,
Descripcibn, I
276-7

1796

29 Sept.

temporal

Escuintla;
Chiquimula

A 1.21.4
expediente
3417 legajo
169

162

Table III
TRIBUTE PAYMENTS FROM CAMOTAN

Aiio

Cacao (granos)

Tostones

Aiio

Tostones

1683-97

331,885

1750-53

2.632

1698

300,400

1754

1.579

1699

1754-56

2.749

1700

450,600

1757-58

1.535

1701-22

1759-62

1.827

1723

439,200

1763

1.803

1724-25

878,000

1764-65

1.827

1726

439,200

1766

1.900

1727

878,000

1767-68

1.803

1728

360,000

1769-71

1.937

1729

1,002,200

378

1772

1.963

1730

2,004,200

520

1773

1.937

1731

2,004,200

430

1774

1.964

1732

1775

1.210

1733

2,004,200

520

1776

1.408

1734

3,006,600

780

1777

675

1735-36

2,004,200

520

1778

1.641

1737

2,010,200

520

1779

733

1738-40

2,004,200

520

1780

675

1741

1,002,200

2.000

1781-82
1783
1784-90
1791

1.408

675

1.408

1.757

Alio

Tostones

1792-96

1.040

1742

1689

1797

954

1743-45

3230

1798-01

936

1746

3183

1802-03

1.176

1747

1642

1804

602

1748

2874

1805-15

0

1749

3284

1816

1817

1818-19

1820

1821

1822

281
313

304
305

252

Reproduced with the compiler's permission, from Lawrence H. Feldman, "Un
reconocimiente de los recursos de Centroamerica en manuscritos chorti" in
Claude Francois Baudez (ed.), Introduction a la arqueologia de Copan, Hondu-
ras (Tequcicalpa, 1983), p. 158

163

ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF A

MARSH ISLAND: THE CULTURAL

OCCUPATION OF COLONEL'S

ISLAND, GEORGIA

Edited by

Karl T. Steinen

ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF A
MARSH ISLAND: THE CULTURAL
OCCUPATION OF COLONEL'S
ISLAND, GEORGIA /\

Ka

Edited *&&* /& *&}
rl T. Steinert?^>/-V/ %

Contributions by

Elizabeth Reitz, Elisabeth S. Sheldon,

Theresa A. Singleton and Karl T. Steinen

Carrollton, Georgia
1987

Frontispiece

Aerial Photograph of Colonel's Island Showing the Location
of Tested Archaeological Sites.

Ill

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Volume XXVI 1987

ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF A MARSH

ISLAND: THE CULTURAL OCCUPATION OF

COLONEL'S ISLAND, GEORGIA

Karl T. Steinen
Volume Editor

CONTENTS

Page
Foreword Robert H. Claxton vii

Preface Karl T. Steinen \

Colonel's Island: Research Design, Hypotheses

and Field Methods Karl T. Steinen 3

The Reconstruction of the Colonel's

Island Environment Elisabeth S. Sheldon 1

The Prehistoric Excavations of Colonel's

Island Karl T. Steinen 13

The History and Historical Archaeology of

Colonel's Island Theresa A. Singleton 29

Report on the Faunal Materials Recovered

from Colonel's Island Elizabeth Reitz 63

The Cultural Occupation of Colonel's Island,
Georgia: Summary and Conclusions . . Karl T. Steinen 81

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VI

FOREWORD

West Georgia College is the headquarters of the State
Archaeologist of Georgia. Dr. Lewis H. Larson, Professor of
Anthropology, has served as State Archaeologist since 1972.
Under Dr. Larson's leadership, West Georgia College per-
sonnel have conducted numerous archaeological studies over
the years.

Studies in the Social Sciences devoted a volume to ar-
chaeology in 1980 when anthropologist Daniel P. Juengst ed-
ited Sapelo Papers, a collection of reports prepared by sev-
eral West Georgia researchers. With this 1987 issue, we
move away from the archaeology of a barrier island to that
of a marsh island, near the Georgia coast, in Glynn County.

Archaeologists, like Karl Steinen, who directed the
Colonel's Island study, are "detectives" of sorts. They at-
tempt to explain how past cultures functioned in light of
"clues" those cultures left behind. The "clues" on Colonel's
Island represent an historical microcosm of coastal peoples:
native Americans, slaves, freedmen trying to build a new life
for themselves, and subsequent industrial entrepreneurs. Per-
haps the most interesting aspect of the Colonel's Island pro-
ject is its contribution to understanding post-Emancipation
black life.

Robert Claxton
Series Editor

Vll

PREFACE

The field excavations and analysis which formed the basis for
this report were generously supported by a contract from the
Georgia Ports Authority and were conducted during the summer
of 1978. The excavations were performed as part of a program to
manage the cultural resources of this small island and to meet
federal environmental requirements. Mr. Wesley Allen, Director
of Engineering, Planning, and Maintenance, served as liaison be-
tween the Georgia Ports Authority and the research party during
the course of the project.

Dr. Craig T. Sheldon, currently of Auburn University at
Montgomery served as co-Principal Investigator during the field
season. Mr. Sheldon helped to formulate the overall research de-
sign, and directed the excavation of the historic sites on the island.
Mr. Sheldon also served as a consultant during the analysis phase
of the project and report preparation.

Mr. George W. Shannon, then a graduate student at Florida
Atlantic University, served as Assistant Director for the prehisto-
ric excavations. Mr. Shannon's knowledge of excavation tech-
niques and surveying contributed immensely to the productivity of
the project.

Dr. Theresa A. Singleton, then a graduate student at the
University of Florida, served as Assistant Director of the historic
excavations. In addition, Ms. Singleton was responsible for the
analysis of the historic materials and preparation of that section of
the report that deals with the historic occupation of the island.

Dr. Elizabeth Reitz, then a graduate student at the Univer-
sity of Florida, was responsible for the analysis of the faunal ma-
terial and interpretation of the results. Dr. Elizabeth Wing of the
Florida State Museum had overall responsibility for the
zooarchaeological analysis.

Dr. Elisabeth S. Sheldon, then of Georgia State University,
served as the botanist for the project. Ms. Sheldon analyzed the
recovered botanical materials which served as the base data for
the environmental reconstruction.

Mr. Stanley Solamillo served as draftsman for this project
and was responsible for the preparation of all line drawings. Mr.
Steven Westmoreland served as laboratory photographer.

1

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 26 (1987)

Nancy Sears-Steinen typed the original Colonel's Island re-
port in 1978. Gena Herring and Jennifer Gill typed the manu-
script for this publication. All three performed extremely well and
beyond their normal duties and are thanked for their efforts. Spe-
cial thanks are given to Adam Selene who provided guidance and
inspiration throughout this project.

Some of the results of these excavations have been reported
in various journals by Steinen, Reitz and Singleton. This mono-
graph is a shortened version of a full report submitted to the
Georgia Ports Authority in 1978 and has received no substantial
revisions. We felt that the ideas presented in 1978 are valid today
and should be presented in their original form. Reitz whishes to
note that the formulas in her paper are now obsolete and should
not be used by other researchers.

Karl T. Steinen

Associate Professor of Anthropology

West Georgia College

RESEARCH DESIGN:
HYPOTHESES AND FIELD METHODS

Karl T. Steinen**

The first intensive evaluations of the aboriginal sites disclosed
that the content and nature of the sites were not as originally ex-
pected. These sites were not productive in terms of amounts of
technological items or floral and faunal materials. This lack of
data and the discovery that the aerial extent of the sites was much
greater than originally estimated forced a major revision in the
research design.

The first excavations of the historic Parland Plantation site
revealed that 1880's industrial development of the northern por-
tions of the island had caused an extensive amount of damage to
this area. This caused the re-evaluation of the research design and
a shift in emphasis from the earlier stated goals to one of discover-
ing the extent of the disturbance as well as recovering data perti-
nent to the problem of man-land relationships.

Original Research Design

Problem: The problem to be investigated on Colonel's Island was
concerned with the nature of the adaptive patterns of the inhabi-
tants in both historic and prehistoric times. Instead of dealing
with prehistoric and historic populations separately, we intended
to treat the inhabitants of the island as one developing line with
variable environments and technologies.

Hypotheses: The research hypotheses and test implications were
divided into two groups reflecting the basic divisions between the
historic and prehistoric sites.

Prehistoric: Hypotheses:

(1) The nature of the aboriginal occupation of Colonel's Is-
land will vary directly with changes in the environment and avail-
able food sources.

(2) The cultural development, reflected in ceramic assem-

** Direct correspondence to: Martha Munro Hall, West Georgia College, Carrollton,
Georgia 30118.

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 26 (1987)

blages, will be similar to that known for the adjacent barrier
islands.

(3) The nature of the sites and adaptation will be similar to
that of the adjacent barrier islands.

Historic: Hypotheses:

(1) The social structure of the Parland Plantation was
stratified.

(2) The social stratification of the Parland Plantation con-
sisted of three definable social classes.

a. Planter/Overseer

b. House Slaves

c. Field Slaves

Test implications developed for the hypotheses were based on
expected recovery of specific types of data. These data range from
ceramics to zooarchaeological and ethnobotanical materials and
represent the standard forms of information employed in archaeo-
logical interpretations. Due to restrictions in available labor, some
of the more detailed form of data recovery were not employed.
Such informative but laborious methods as flotation and random
sampling were not used. Forms of judgmental samplingwere used
in areas felt to be most productive of data needed to test the re-
search hypotheses. While it is recognized that this may not neces-
sarily produce data that is representative of the sites, it was felt to
be the most economical and only practical approach to use at the
time.

Test implications for the prehistoric sites included:

(1) Permanent year-round habitation shown by the presence
of subterranean storage facilities, post mold patterns, tools, abun-
dant faunal remains, and extensive deposits of midden;

(2) The cultural development of the island is reflected in the
presence of the known ceramic continuum for the Georgia Coast;
and

(3) Faunal, floral and artifactual remains will be similar to
those recovered from the barrier islands. This would indicate simi-
lar occupational patterns.

Test implications for the historic sites included:
(1) Differential distribution of artifact types (i.e. ceramics,
agricultural implements) and observable clusters will reflect the
differential status within the plantation system. These clusters

would be:

a. Planter/Overseer having the newer, better
items.

b. The house slaves, being the favored segment of
the slave society, and being closest to the Planter/Over-
seer physically, will receive the first "generation" of cast-
off goods; (These would be the better and more complete
of the used material culture.)

c. Field slaves, being spatially separate from the
Planter/Overseer segment, consequently possessing poor,
less complete items as well as having implements adapted
to their roles as agricultural workers.

(2) Differential distribution of subsistence goods would reflect
stratification within the plantation culture.

Data Recovery Techniques

Data recovery techniques were determined by Sheldon in his
original assessment of the island. Techniques outlined ranged
from facing the banks of coastal sites to the use of stratified sam-
pling techniques. Their intent was to recover data pertinent to the
development of a model of occupation of the island. The recovery
of data concerning environment, diet, cultural affiliation, chronol-
ogy and adaptation were considered important to the proper un-
derstanding of the island's prehistory and history. The exact data
recovery techniques and placement of test units were to be deter-
mined after preliminary inspection of sites.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cook, Fred C.

1977 The Lower Georgia Coast as a Cultural Sub-Region. Early Georgia 5 (1&2):
15-35
Cowgill, George

1975 A Selection of Samples: Comments of Archaeo-Statistics. in James w. Mueller,
ed. Sampling in Archaeology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson
DePratter, Chester B.

1977 Environmental Changes on the Georgia Coast During the Prehistoric Period.
Early Georgia 5 (1&2): 1-14
Fairbanks, Charles H.

1942 The Taxonomic Position of Stallings Island, Georgia. American Antiquity 7
(3): 223-231

Ford, James A.

1966 Early Formative Cultures in Georgia and Florida American Antiquity 31 (6):

781-799
1969 A Comparison of Formative Cultures in the Americas. Smithsonian Contribu-
tions to Anthropology, Volume 11, Washington, D.C.
Larson, Lewis H. Jr.

1958 Cultural Relationships Between the Northern St. John's Area and the Georgia
Coast. Florida Anthropologist XI (1): 11-21
Martinez, Carlos

1975 Cultural Sequence on the Central Georgia Coast 1000 BC-1650 AD. M.A.
Thesis, University of Florida
Milanich, Jerald T.

1973 The Southeastern Deptford Culture: A Preliminary Definition. Bureau of His-
toric Sites and Properties Bulletin No. 3. Tallahassee
Mueller, James W. ed.

1975 Sampling in Archaeology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson
Sears, William. H.

1961 The Study of Social and Religious Systems in North American Archaeology.
Current Anthropology 2 (3): 223-246

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE
COLONEL'S ISLAND ENVIRONMENT

Elisabeth Shepard Sheldon**

Geology, Climate, Soils

Colonel's Island lies approximately 15 miles southwest of
Brunswick, Georgia, within the part of that state classified as the
Coastal Plain. The northern edge of this geophysical province is
marked by the Fall Line Hills, an old shoreline formed by the
greatest sea advance during the Late Mesozoic. It is overlain by
many sedimentary strata, including the Pliocene age Lafayette
and Pleistocene Columbia formations (Cameron 1976).

Landforms along Georgia's coast are the results of barrier is-
land formation during the Pleistocene when sea levels were higher.
The oldest series of islands (the Wicomico shoreline) formed when
sea level was nearly 100 feet higher than at present. After that
there were six other periods of ice formation and melting and se-
quences of barrier islands developed at lower altitudes (Johnson et
al. 1974). Colonel's Island is a remnant of one formed by the
Princess Anne shoreline (elevation 15 feet).

Soils on the coastal islands from Charleston, South Carolina
to Miami, Florida are of two types: 1. fine, white quartz sands and
2. dark mineral sands (Cameron 1976). Moist salt and pepper
sands formed of heavy mineral content, are characteristic of the
well-drained higher areas and windward waterfront on Colonel's
Island. Black sands are found, however, in the muddy bottoms of
low, wet depressions, on leeward banks, and compose the black,
mucky soils of the tidal flats.

The climate of Glynn County may be classed as relatively
moderate, with hot summers, cold winters, and high humidity year
round.

Vegetation

Pollen profiles from Lowndes County, Georgia (Watts 1971)
indicate that the vegetation on the Coastal Plain of Georgia began

** Direct correspondence to: Site, Inc., P.O. Box 3563, Montogomery, Alabama
36109.

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 26 (1987)

to assume its present appearance by 3000 BC, with the pine-domi-
nated associations of today's forest replacing a dry, oak wood-
land-prairie mosaic (8500-5000 BP). This major vegetational re-
placement was apparently caused by rising sea levels which raised
the water table 12 meters, creating lakes and flooding previously
dry areas. In coastal counties, therefore, the Pine Barrens have
been displaced by angiospermous evergreen forest, bayhead as-
sociations, cypress swamps, and salt marsh.

Little is known about southeastern United States Coastal
plain maritime forests, or about successional processes in island
forests. Except for compilation of yet unpublished species lists, I
am aware of only one study (Cameron 1976) of forest vegetation
and useful plants on Georgia islands.

Three distinct vegetational associations were observed during
three weeks of field work in 1976 and 1977 on Colonel's Island:
live oak forest, pine woods, and salt marsh. These are clearly de-
fined and usually lack ecotones where adjacent.

Live Oak Forest

This maritime forest is characteristic of sandy beaches from
southeast Virginia to Florida, to Texas. Its conspicuous features
are sclerophyllous evergreen angiosperms among which Quercus
virginiana (live oak) dominates, with vines, epiphytes and little
herbaceous growth. Because of its tolerance to salt spray, zeric
conditions and infertile soils, the live oak is commonly the first
forest species to develop on sand dunes. Once established, it is
quite stable and resists change because of the long life span of the
tree, its ability to sprout, and its adaptation to the site (Johnson et
al. 1974).

Live oaks form dense canopies over most of Colonel's Island
above the 10 foot contour. Shade and cooler temperatures under
the canopy restrict herbaceous growth, but small trees and shrubs
can be common. Small stands of Carya glabra (pignut hickory)
occur within this association at the Long Midden and Little Sa-
tilla sites. Their origin is not known, but it may be the result of
secondary succession.

Serenoa repens (saw palmetto) occurs in the understory, par-
ticularly at the southwest end of the island where the canopy is
less dense. Magnolia virginiana (sweet bay), Prunus serotina
(black cherry), Morus rubra (mulberry) and Castanea pumila

8

(chiquapin) were seen only once. Nyssa biflora (tupelo), Ilex
glabra (gall berry), /. Opaca (American holly), /. vomitoria
(Yaupon, cassine), and Juniperus silicicoa (red cedar) appear
regularly, as do Vaccinium corymbosum and V. myrsinites (blue-
berries). Myrica cerifera (was myrtle) is common. Vine species
are numerous and abundant. Most are of the low climbing type,
including Ampelopsis arborea (pepper vine) Parthenocissus Quin-
quefolia (Virginia creeper), S mi lax bona-nox (greenbrier),
Berchemia scandens, as well as Vitis vulpina (frost grape). Vitis
rotunifolia (muscadine) is the only high climber. Clitoria mari-
ana (butterfly pea) and Galactia elliottii (milkpea) are spread
over the litter, but patches of bare ground are common. However,
in sunny spots Lepidium virginicum (poor man's pepper), Opuntia
compressa (prickly pear), Verbascum Thapsus (mullein) Cnidos-
colus stimulosus (stinging nettle), Pyrropapphus carolinianus
(false dandelionl), Salvia coccinea (sage), Commelina erecta (day
flower) and Ruellia caroliensis may be encountered.

Pine Forest

Pine woods occur on well-drained sites (generally between 5-
10 feet in elevation) where the live oaks have been cleared and
secondary succession is taking place as on the mainland from
herbaceous pioneers to pine forest to mixed hardwood forest. On
Colonel's Island, the dominant pine is P. elliottii (slash pine);
south of U.S. Highway 17, the natural distribution of this forest
type is obscured by the presence of a pine plantation over much of
the island's interior. Absence of burning or grazing has permitted
growth of a tangled, dense understory of Serenoa repens (saw pal-
metto), Myrics cerifera (wax myrtle), Ilex glabra (gall berry), /.
opace (American holly), /. vomitoria (yaupon, cassine), Vaccini-
umcorymbosum and V. myrsinites (blueberries) and Befaria
racemosa (tar flower).

Dichromena colorata (star rush), Gratiola ramose (hedge-
hysop), Pluchea camphorata (camphor weed), Pterocaulon
pychostachym (black root) Rhexia alifanus (meadow beauty),
and Xyris ambigue (yellow-eyed grass) are common along the
roadside ditches.

Salt Marsh

Except where the South Brunswick River, Little Satilla

9

River, Fancy Bluff Creek, and Jointer Creek border the land,
Colonel's Island is surrounded by Spartina alterniflora (cord
grass) marshes. These pure stands become mixed only on the
banks where Distichlis spicata (saltgrass), Salicornia virginica
(glasswort), Borrichia frutescens (sea ox-eye), Baccharis
halimifolia (merkle), and Hydrocotyle bonariensis (water penny-
wort) occur at the upper tidal limits.

Conclusion

Although species which appear in the first one to ten years follow-
ing a major habitat disturbance may not be representative of the
primary climax forest, during later successional stages the vegeta-
tion becomes more and more similar to that of the primary forest.
Secondary climax forests are usually composed of the same
species as the primary forest although the ratio of dominant spe-
cies to one another may differ. Consequently, it is likely that to-
day's vegetational associations closely resemble those of the forests
which were present on Colonel's Island during prehistoric periods
and probably persisted until British settlement in the late 18th.
century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barcia

1951 Barcia 's Chronological History of the Continent of Florida Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press
Bennett, Charles E.

1964 Laudonniere & Fort Caroline Gainesville: University of Florida Press
Boyd, Mark F. et al.

1951 Here They Once Stood Gainesville: University of Florida Press
Cameron, Marguerita L.

1976 Sapelo Island: An Ethnobotanical and Floristic Reconstruction. Unpublished
M. A. Thesis, University of Alabama
Cooney, Loraine M.

1933 Garden History of Georgia 1733-1933 Atlanta: Peachtree Garden Club
Davenport, Lawrence J.

1976 Pleistocene Glaciation and Its Possible Effects Upon the Vegetation of the
Southeastern United States. Term paper for Biology 441 (Advanced Archaeo-
logical Botany)

DePratter, Chester B.

1977 Environmental Changes on the Georgia Coast During the Prehistoric Period.
Presented at the October meeting of the Society for Georgia Archaeology,
Douglas, Georgia.

Duncan, Wilbur H. and L. E. Foote

1975 Wildflowers of the Southeastern United States Athens: University of Georgia
Press

10

Harper, Francis, ed.

1958 The Travels of William Bartram. Yale University Press
Johnson, A. Sydney et al.

1974 An Ecological Survey of the Coastal Region of Georgia. National Park Service
Scientific Monograph 3.
Johnson, Guion Griffis

1930 A Social History of the Sea Islands. Chapel Hill: University of North Caro-
lina Press
Harris, Ben Charles

1972 The Complete Herbal. Barre: Barre Publishers
Hedrick, U. P., ed.

1972 Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Kuchler, A. W.

1964 Potential Vegetation of the Coterminous United States. American Geographi-
cal Society, Special Publication #36
Lanning, John Tate

1935 The Spanish Missions of Georgia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press
Leigh, Frances Butler

1969 Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War. New York: Negro Universi-
ties Press
Leighton, Ann

1976 American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century For Use or For Delight. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co.
Lowery, Woodbury

1959 The Spanish Settlements. New York: Russell & Russell, Inc.
MacNutt, Francis Augustus

1912 De Orbe Novo: Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera. New York: Burt
Franklin
Martin, Alexander C. and W. D. Barkley

1961 Seed Identification Manual. Berkeley: University of California Press
Medager, Oliver Perry

1972 Edible Wild Plants. New York: Collier Books
Morton, Julia F.

1974 Folk Remedies of the Low Country. Miami: E. A. Seemann
Radford, Albert E. et al.

1968 Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press
Ribaut, Jean

1927 Discovery of Terra Florida. De Land: Florida State Historical Society
Romans, Bernard

1961 Natural History of East and West Florida [1775). New Orleans: Pelican Pub-
lishing Co.
Sauer, Carl Ortwin

1971 Sixteenth Century North America. Berkeley: University of California Press
Shipp, Barnard

1881 The History of Hernando deSoto and Florida. Philadelphia: Collins Printer
Watts, W. A.

1975 Vegetation Record for the Last 20,000 Years from a Small Marsh on Lookout
Mountain, Northwest Georgia. Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 86:
237-291.

11

Watts, W. A.

1973 Postglacial and Interglacial Vegetation History of Southern Georgia and Cen-
tral Florida. Ecology 52(4): 676-690
Watts, W. A.

1969 A Pollen Diagram from Mud Lake, Marion County, North-Central Florida.
Geological Society of America Bulletin v. 80 (pt. 1): 631-642.
Whitehead, Donald R.

1967 Studies of Full-Glacial Vegetation and Climate in Southeastern United States.
Quaternary Paleoecology, Yale University Press
Whitehead, Donald R.

1965 Palynology and Pleistocene Phytogeography of Unglaciated Eastern North
America. Quaternary of the United States Princeton: University Press.

12

THE PREHISTORIC EXCAVATIONS OF
COLONEL'S ISLAND

Karl T. Steinen**

Criteria for the selection of sites to be tested were developed
after a thorough field inspection of the known prehistoric middens
on the island. These included factors of geographical placement on
the island, access, potential for data production, and observable
variables such as vegetation and ground cover. Five sites were se-
lected for testing. They represent a sample of sites from all geo-
graphical areas of the island as well as coastal and inland
locations.

Excavation techniques, described in the individual site re-
ports, were designed to produce the maximum amount of informa-
tion for the available time in the field. In some cases, this meant
abandoning the traditional dimensions of excavation units and
adopting rather unorthodox sizes. When the type of information
desired required the exposure of a long profile, narrower trenches
were usually excavated. A 3 x 20 foot trench will expose as much
profile as one 5 x 20 feet, with a tremendous savings of time and
energy. In turn, recovery techniques were designed to maximize
the recovery of data for the allowed time. Informative but labor-
intensive techniques such as flotation were not used. The careful
inspection of all exposed surfaces, screening and spot checking of
back dirt by water screening insured that few small items such as
fish vertebrae were lost. Indeed, the normal recovery techniques
that were used proved to be sensitive to the recovery of small
items.

WGC 918, Long Midden

Long Midden is located on the western edge of Colonel's Is-
land and borders on the marsh which separates the island from
Fancy Bluff Creek. Sheldon (1976) originally identified two mid-
dens in this general area. WGC 917, the Cove Site, was reported
to be directly south of Long Midden. A careful inspection of the

** Direct correspondence to: Martha Munro Hall, West Georgia College, Carrollton,
Georgia 30118.

13

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 26 (1987)

bank and island showed that there was one continuous deposit of
shell, rather than two discrete units. Therefore, the two sites were
combined for the purposes of excavation.

Long Midden was chosen to be the control site for the devel-
opment of field methods for the prehistoric excavations. It is typi-
cal of the shore/marsh oriented sites on the island. The site proper
is located within the pine-oak-palmetto zone of the island.

The site is roughly kidney-shaped and extends along the
shore line of the island where it protrudes into the marsh. Visual
inspection of the site, coupled with random augering, disclosed
that scattered shell deposits exist for perhaps 500 feet into the
interior of the island. Dense ground cover prevented the exact de-
termination of this aspect of the site. Surface deposits of midden
shell extend only for 50 feet inland. The total length of the mid-
den was approximately 1200 feet. Depth of the deposits was found
to be approximately 6-7 inches.

It was originally planned to excavate a series of 5 x 10 foot
units along the central axis of the site to recover the required ma-
terial. These formal units would be supplemented by data recov-
ered from the selected use of the power auger. However, after the
excavations were begun, it was found that the original set of five
test units would be too time consuming. Therefore, the size and
number of units were reduced and more reliance placed upon the
use of the auger, and the detailed inspection of eroded surfaces
and banks.

A total of three units were excavated. All units were staked
out and a three-inch margin was left along each wall. The first, a
5 x 10 foot unit, arbitrarily designated 1000L1000, was placed on
the inland side of the midden toward the center of the site and
was excavated in six-inch arbitrary units to a depth of 12 inches.
At 6 inches there was a definite break between shell midden and
the sub-midden layer. The excavations were continued to 12 in-
ches to determine the nature of the sub-midden deposit. At 12
inches, an exploratory shovel hole was dug in the northwest corner
of the square to a depth of 44 inches below ground level to deter-
mine if any midden deposits or cultural materials could be dis-
cerned. The results were negative. The second unit, designated
1000L1010 was a 5 x 5 foot extension of 1000L1000. It was
placed to elicit stratigraphic, artifactual and ecofactual informa-
tion from the front part of the midden. The shell midden was re-
moved as a single six inch layer. The sub-midden was also exca-

14

vated to a depth of 12 inches. The third unit, designated
1103L 1054.4 was 103 feet north and 54.4 feet west of the first
unit. Also 5x5 feet in size, it was excavated in 6 inch layers.

The three test units were placed to determine aspects of the
midden. Inspections of the non-shell areas did not indicate the
presence of cultural materials to any extent. Augering and ran-
dom grubbing did not disclose any cultural materials off of the
shell deposit. It was decided to concentrate all further excavations
on the shell areas as they proved to be the most productive in
terms of the data needed to test the stated hypotheses. In all
cases, shell was saved and weighed. This was done to determine
possible differential utilization of various parts of the site and al-
low a comparison of one site and area to another. This gross use of
shell analysis can provide a supplement to the zooarchaeological
analysis of recovered faunal material. No attempt was made to
actually type or measure the shell due to the limitation of man-
power. An attempt was made to monitor the nature of the recov-
ered shell which was, with few exceptions, was the common oyster
so often encountered on archaeological sites.

Few artifacts were recovered and no culturally related fea-
tures were observed. In addition, the flora and faunal remains
were very low. This lack of the type of data needed to test the
original hypotheses forced the modification of the overall research
design at this point. The shift in design was made from developing
a model of environmental exploitation to compare to the barrier
islands to explaining the differences between the observed patterns
of Colonel's Island to the barrier islands.

WGC 907 Little Satilla

The Little Satilla site was described by Sheldon as follows:

The site. . .takes up most of the extreme southwest point
of Colonel's Island. An extensive oyster midden, eroding
into the Little Satilla River in places, it also extends in-
land in places about 50 meters. In addition to the collec-
tion made, busycon shells, both worked and unaltered
were seen. The site today is in desirable oak-hickory-
sweet bay hammock with extensive palmetto understory.
The caretaker of Colonel's Island, a long-time local resi-
dent, stated that 'a long time ago' there were houses on
the southern end of the island, but no traces of these

15

were seen. The midden is intermittent in places, never ex-
ceeding 30 cm. in depth. (Sheldon 1976:44).

Sheldon (1976:6) classifies Little Satilla as a midden field.

These are sites with a shore location, but also extending
to considerable distances inland. They are characterized
by the presence of numerous small distinct mounds of
oyster shells. The individual middens range from three to
eight meters in diameter from 10 to 50 cms. high. They
are separated by five to twenty meters of level surface
with low shell density.

Little Satilla and the adjacent WGC 923 (South End)
presented a unique problem for the prehistoric investigations on
the island. Beyond the originally stated goals of the research de-
sign, it was determined that there was a need to define the nature
of the site. This midden field represented an aberrant situation on
the island and needed to be explained. A series of methods were
developed to supply the desired information. These consisted of: 1)
development of a detailed topographic map of the site, 2) location
of each midden rise, 3) controlled augering of the site to deter-
mine and record the stratigraphy of the site, 4) detailed examina-
tion of eroded banks to determine the stratigraphy, and 5) excava-
tion of at least one controlled test unit in an undisturbed area of
the site.

The thick understory of the site prevented the making of a
complete topographic map of the site in the available time. In-
stead, only one quarter of the site was mapped. This map detailed
the distribution, size and form of the midden rises. Further, the
surface inspection of the interior portions of the site revealed that
sites WGC 907 and 923 were continuous and not discrete.

In excess of 40 auger holes were sunk to determine the nature
of the sub-surface deposits of the site. A series of 1 5 holes were
sunk into two separate midden rises to test their content. The re-
sults of these augerings were extremely varied. The holes revealed
that there was no uniformity to the midden deposit. Indeed, in one
case where three holes were sunk in an area smaller than 1 square
yard, three completely different profiles were recorded. The two
midden rises that were augered also displayed different strata.

A visual inspection of the site coupled with the completed
topographic map gave the distinct impression that the site had

16

been dug over in an unsystematic manner. The distribution of the
midden rises, adjacent depressions, uneven surfaces, and unsys-
tematic dispersal of the rises is reminiscent of several sites I have
seen that have been destroyed by collectors.

The extreme southern end of the site was found to be undis-
turbed and was visually similar to other sites on the island. Here,
an eroded bank was faced and recorded. In addition, a single 5x5
foot unit, designated "Square A" was excavated in 6 inch levels.
The eroded bank area was closely inspected at low tide, and sev-
eral sherds were recovered.

Square A was located adjacent to the bank near the Little
Satilla River in an undisturbed area. The first 6 inches consisted
of a shell/soil matrix which contained no artifacts. The 6-12 inch
level had shell for the first inch and was sterile sand after that.
The square was excavated to 17 inches without recovering any
cultural material. No faunal materials were recovered, and only a
few indeterminate seeds were found.

The 12 sherds that were recovered represent an extremely
meager inventory for such a large site. Of the materials recovered,
8 sherds were recovered from the surface or along the shore edge
at low tide. Three were undecorated sand and grit tempered
sherds, two were Savannah Fine Cord Marked, one was an
unidentifiable punctated, one an historic White Ware, and one is
what appears to be an eroded Filfot Cross. The auger tests pro-
duced four sherds. Two were Savannah Fine Cord Marked and
two were plain, sand and grit tempered sherds. No other artifacts
were recovered or observed.

The recovered material, as well as the materials recovered
during the original survey by Kohler in 1975 (these materials are
no longer available for study) indicate that the site was occupied
and utilized during the late prehistoric and protohistoric periods.
The scarcity of cultural materials, especially faunal remains, sug-
gest that the site was not a permanent habitation area, but was
probably used intermittently over a period of time. The strati-
graphic evidence recovered through the controlled augering sug-
gests that the midden rises are the results of post-aboriginal
activities.

WGC 906/926 Empty Bottle

Located on the eastern shore of Colonel's Island, this site is a

17

combination of sites WGC 906 (Rich) and 925 (Hidden Midden).
The situation encountered by Empty Bottle was much the same as
the situations with Little Satilla and Long Midden. A thorough
surface inspection showed that the two sites were continuous. In
keeping with the new status of the two sites, it was renamed
Empty Bottle.

The site description fits a combination of both 906 and 926.
Described by Kohler as being 40 meters long, 20 centimeters deep
and narrow, the site is in fact over 100 yards long. The width of
the site is in excess of 100 yards, with the major concentration of
materials being close to the shore. The inland materials are dis-
continuous and very thin.

Surface inspections of the area supported Kohler's conclu-
sions about the productivity of the site. Ceramics were seen erod-
ing along the marsh/creek bank in greater quantities than at any
other prehistoric site on the island. In addition, at least one mid-
den rise was encountered in an inland area that had a heavy pal-
metto cover.

Test units, designated squares "B", "C", and "D" were
placed to determine aspects of vertical and horizontal stratigraphy
as well as recover the needed floral and faunal material. Square B
was situated on the extreme southern end of the site in the vicinity
of what was termed the Rich site. Square C was placed on the
northern end of the site approximately 50 feet from the marsh
edge and 20 feet from the edge of an abandoned agricultural ca-
nal. Square D was situated between these twwo and was designed
to determine the nature of the observed midden rise.

Square B had stratigraphy similar to that of the Long Mid-
den site and Little Satilla. The identifiable midden was composed
of oyster shell and dark brown sand. One important difference
that was exhibited by the square was that the cultural materials
were encountered to a much greater depth. Of note is an intrusive
piece of glass encountered in the 12-18 inch level. This indicates
that there was a greater amount of disturbance than was observa-
ble at the other site.

Square C was excavated on the northern end of the site in
proximity to an abandoned Plantation Period agricultural ditch.
The shell deposit was very thin in this area, with a parallel differ-
ence in the nature and composition of the sand. Materials were
represented in the first 12 inches of the unit, and the remainder
was sterile. Cultural materials were primarily sand and grit tem-

18

pered plain with one curvilinear complicated stamped sherd which
can be classified as Swift Creek II.

Square D, a 3 x 10 foot trench, was excavated from the iden-
tifiable midden rise toward the shore to identify the nature of this
rise. The unit was excavated and recorded in two sections. The
west end corresponded to the midden rise, while the east end was
on the level area of the midden.

The recorded profiles show that the midden rise was the re-
sult of cultural activity and was not accidental. The increased
thickness of the shell midden in the west end of the test unit was
probably the result of a more intensive utilization of this specific
point of the site. Recovered materials were primarily plain sand
and grit tempered shreds. One instance of a smoothed over simple
stamp was recovered from the first 6 inches of the east end of the
unit. Surface materials accounted for 1 1 undecorated sand and
grit tempered sherds and a single highly eroded complicated
stamped sherd.

In summary, this site does not appear to be radically different
from either Little Satilla or Long Midden. However, the increased
frequency of occurrence of ceramics indicates a greater intensity
of use. The materials suggest that the site was utilized from early
through late Deptford times.

WGC 905 Jointer Creek

Located approximately 1,100 feet north of WGC 906/926,
this site is situated on a high bluff overlooking Jointer Creek. It is
a series of five oyster middens which were numbered 1 through 5
from north to south. Kohler (Sheldon 1976:40) mentions noticing
tabby bricks and mortar in the northern end of the site. My in-
spection of the site disclosed that these bricks were historic struc-
tures represented by fallen chimneys, 50 to 75 yards inland from
the creek bank. These structures, however, were not part of the
shell midden. Probing, grubbing and surface inspection disclosed
that this site was similar in size and extent to the other sites that
had been excavated. Maximum observed depth was approximately
6 inches. Inland deposits were thin and scattered. Surface indica-
tions of materials were limited to three undecorated aboriginal
sherds and a broken modern bottle.

Two units were excavated on the site. Square E, a 5 x 5 foot
unit, was excavated in Midden #2 in the northern area of the site.

19

Square F, a 5 x 5 foot unit was excavated in Midden #4. In addi-
tion, a 4.5 x 1 foot extension was made from the northern edge of
Square E toward a Historic Period ditch.

Square E was excavated to a depth of 20 inches. The amount
of materials recovered was relatively large. In the first 6 inches, 6
sherds were recovered. From 6-12 inches a total of 46 sherds, one
piece of tabby, and a conch columella were recovered. The 12-18
inch level contained 14 sherds. Of interest are two complicated
stamped sherds which were too small to type, but the lands and
grooves were very wide and reminiscent of the later stages in the
development of the complicated stamped tradition in the
southeast.

A 4.5 x 1 foot, 18 inch deep extension of the northeastern
corner of this trench was excavated to' determine the slope of the
midden toward the bank of the agricultural canal. The first 6 in-
ches of this extension did not reveal any cultural materials. The 6-
12 inch level, however, contained 6 grit and sand tempered plain
sherds and a single stemmed projectile point.

Square F, excavated in the standard 6 inch levels, contained
no cultural materials. The first two or three inches of the unit did
not contain any shell. At 3 inches a concentration of shell which
contained no cultural material was encountered and was labelled
Feature 5. The unit was excavated to a depth of 18 inches and
filled.

The proximity of this site to the historic structures and the
extremely mixed nature of the midden, particularly the middle
layers of Square E, indicate that this site has been highly dis-
turbed. The aboriginal materials indicate an occupation or utiliza-
tion intermittently from the first known occupation of the Georgia
Coast up to and including the Historic Period. Until further evi-
dence can be gathered, I would suggest that this site was dis-
turbed by the people who lived in the nearby cabins.

WGC 913 Inlet Site

Located on the southwestern shore of Colonel's Island in
proximity to Sam Creek, this site consists of a scattered shell mid-
den in an old agricultural field. Sheldon (1976:56) describes the
site as being 2400 square meters in extent with a maximum thick-
ness of fifty centimeters. Surface collections consisted of three
sand and grit tempered plain sherds. No other materials were ob-
served or collected.

20

Three 5x5 foot test units were excavated at this site. Square
G was situated approximately 30 feet from the western bank of
the site and on the highest elevation of the site. Recovered materi-
als included extensive amounts of tabby mortar intermixed with
aboriginal ceramics in the first 6 inches. The 6-12 inch layer con-
tained more tabby and aboriginal materials. Here, there were two
sherds of Deptford Simple and Cross Simple Stamped. From the
12-18 inch level, two small sand tempered plain sherds were
recovered.

Square H was situated inland from the marsh and was placed
to determine the nature of a site near the shore. The first 6 inches
of the unit contained 18 plain sherds and no historic artifacts. The
second 6 inches of the unit contained 6 sherds, one of which was
Deptford Cross Simple Stamped.

At approximately 15 inches, there appeared what was first
thought to be bone in a poor state of preservation. This area was
designated a feature and excavated as such. Careful excavations
revealed that the deposit was roots in a state of decay. During the
excavation of this feature, a 2-foot extension of this unit was exca-
vated to the west that was found to contain 1 1 sand tempered
plain sherds.

Square I, a 3 x 5 foot unit, was excavated to determine the
nature of a shallow trench that was discernible on the surface of
the site. It was hypothesized that this trench was a remnant of the
Plantation Period utilization of the island. The unit was placed to
intersect the trench and provide the necessary stratigraphic infor-
mation to determine use.

Square I had very few artifacts in it. The first 6 inches pro-
duced three sand tempered plain sherds and a single fragment of a
green glass bottle from the eastern wall. The 6-12 inch level pro-
duced three small, unmarked sand tempered sherds, and the 12-18
inch level produced one sand and fiber tempered sherd.

A small extension of the unit was excavated to the east in the
area of the historic bottle fragment. Designated Feature 6, this
unit produced a single heavily patinated bottle bottom which
matched the fragment recovered from the main test unit.

The mixture of historic and prehistoric materials at this site
indicates that it was used during both the Aboriginal and Planta-
tion Periods. Physically, with the exception of the historic materi-
als, it does not vary significantly from any other observed aborigi-
nal site. The sparse recovered remains, specifically the few

21

decorated and fiber tempered sherds, indicate an early use of this
point on the island.

WGC 357 Railroad

This, the final prehistoric site tested, is situated inland from
the island edge. It is, at the shortest, 1500 feet from the South
Brunswick River. Kohler (Sheldon 1976:31) describes the site as
follows:

A large ceramic and flint site in clear field on north
end of Colonel's Island Railroad spur. . .site is visible on
road and continuing for at least 100 meters more along
the RR cut where it is visible as oyster shell. It is appar-
ently a midden, although it is inland, unlike other mid-
dens seen on the island. The main part of the midden is
south of the tracks, where it is in places at least 50 me-
ters wide. . .the sherds collected were quite small and
apparently fragmented by plowing.

This site presented a special problem in the excavations. Its
inland placement required that the question of why it was not ad-
jacent to the marsh or a source of flowing water be investigated.
Also, the extremely thin nature of the deposit, in most areas less
than one inch of fragmented shell, suggested that the site was a
relic of Plantation Period agriculture. The known use of marsh
muck and shell as a fertilizer during the Plantation Period occu-
pation of the coast suggested that the observed shell may have
been transported in as a response to the need to fertilize the agri-
cultural field. A third problem that was investigated was that the
thickest shell deposit observable at the site was in an abandoned
road. This indicated that the shell, at least in this area, was the
product of road fill, and not aboriginally deposited.

22

Topographic Map of WGC 357, The Rail Road Site, Showing the
Location of Test Units.

23

Unit 45L55, a 5 x 10 foot square, was excavated in a low
artifact/shell density area. The first 6 inches of this unit produced
an iron fragment, probably from a plow, at two inches, and sev-
eral glass sherds. The soil was a fine brown loam. The 6-12 inch
level contained several small aboriginal sherds at the 6 inch level,
and a scattering of shell where the soil changed to a mottled gray/
light brown. Since the productivity of the unit was low, the unit
was reduced to 5 x 5 feet at this point. From 12-18 inches, a black
mottling appeared which continued to 18 inches, but decreased in
size. The unit was excavated to 30 inches below the surface with-
out encountering any more artifacts.

Square J was placed to intersect the shell materials that were
exposed by the abandoned field road. It was 5x5 feet in size and
was excavated in arbitrary 6 inch levels. The top layer contained
21 undecorated sand tempered sherds and a single sand tempered
complicated stamped sherd of undeterminable type. The width of
the lands and grooves, however, suggest that it is a late example
of the complicated stamped tradition. The second 6 inches, which
were below the area disturbed by the field road, contained 46 un-
decorated sand tempered sherds and two sherds with the line
block complicates stamp. The excavations continued to 30 inches
but produced no further cultural materials.

The distribution of cultural materials and the profiles suggest
that this area of WGC 357 is a part of an aboriginal site that has
been at least partially disturbed by erosion and vehicle traffic.

Square K, a 3 x 10 foot unit, was excavated to the south and
west of Square J in an attempt to determine aspects of the inner
part of the midden. The first 6 inches of the unit contained broken
shell which changed to whole shell in the 6-12 inch layer, which
probably indicates the transition to the sub-plow zone. The shell
ceases at the bottom of this level and the excavations which con-
tinued to 18 inches produced no more indications of aboriginal or
historic materials.

The cultural material from this unit was confined to the top 6
inches. It consisted of 30 undecorated sand tempered sherds and
1 1 undecorated St. John's Plain body sherds. This was the first,
and only, time that St. John's sherds were recovered from the
island.

The final test unit, Square M, a 5 x 5 foot unit was located
80 feet to the west of Square K. This area, while in an old field, is
currently covered by an extensive growth of pine and hardwood

24

and is least likely to have been disturbed by recent agricultural
practices.

The top 6 inches of this unit contained 10 sand and grit tem-
pered undecorated sherds, some barbed wire, and an iron nail.
The 6-12 inch layer contained 17 sand tempered plain body
sherds and three unworked flint flakes. The final 6 inches from 12-
18 inches below the surface contained a total of four unworked
flint flakes.

The excavations at this site were inconclusive. They did
demonstrate however, that the area of the site was much smaller
than originally thought. The bulk of the area, principally in the
vicinity of Grid 00, Unit 45L45 and to the north, may represent
the remains of past attempts to increase the fertility of the field.
The general absence of both cultural material and shell coupled
with the lack of any depth to the deposit in this area indicate that
the observed materials were not deposited by aboriginal activity.
In the area where there is identifiable midden, the site presents
several problems. The line block complicated stamped sherds indi-
cate a late protohistoric or historic utilization for the site. The St.
John's materials are significant in that they represent one of the
few documented instances of the recovery of this material from
north of the St. Mary's River. This brings into question the dy-
namics of culture contact and exchange in this area.

Summary

The excavations conducted in five of the prehistoric sites on
Colonel's Island give some insight into the occupation of the Geor-
gia marsh from approximately 2000 BC to AD 1500. However,
due to their limited nature, only preliminary conclusions can be
made concerning the nature of the occupation.

The overall placement of the sites in conjunction with the
marsh and river/creeks indicates that site placement was deter-
mined by the need to have ready access to these ecosystems. The
abundance of shell further indicates that placement of sites in
proximity to oyster resources was also an important consideration.
While oysters are generally considered a less than important
source of food, this pattern of site placement in regard to oyster
exploitation has been suggested for other areas (Steinen 1975).
While there are no observable large deposits of oyster in the im-
mediate vicinity of Colonel's Island today, this variable must not

25

be overlooked when considering settlement placement.

The lack of any observable cultural features, the relative
scarcity of artifacts and the low density of faunal remains serve as
evidence to support the hypothesis developed during the excava-
tion of WGC 917. This is that the site was a non-permanent
habitation. The extensive aboriginal sites known for the barrier
islands show a different pattern. While they express a similar low
concentration of tools they have the tendency to be larger in size
and contain many more ceramics. The number of sherds recovered
from similar aboriginal sites on St. Simons Island tested by Marti-
nez far exceeded the number recovered from any of the Colonel's
Island excavations (Martinez 1975). If this higher concentration
of ceramics is interpreted as representing a permanent, or at least
semi-permanent occupation of the site, then the corresponding
lack of these ceramics indicates a non-permanent pattern.

One aspect of the prehistoric sites that was not expected was
the consistent modification of the sites by the historic activities.
From the patterns observed in the tree growth coupled with the
impact on the archaeological sites, it is evident that virtually all of
the sites have been disturbed to some extent by Plantation Period
agricultural practices. Field clearing, planting and shell robbing
have greatly disrupted the already meager archaeological record.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bullen, Ripley P. and Bruce Green

1970 Stratigraphic Tests at Stallings Island. Georgia Florida Anthropologist 23 (1):
8-28

Caldwell, Joseph R.

1971 Chronology of the Georgia Coast. Southeastern Archaeological Conference
Bulletin 13: 88-92

Caldwell, Joseph and Catherine McCann

1941 Irene Mound Site, Chatham County, Georgia University of Georgia Press,
Athens
Claflin, William H.

1931 The Stallings Island Mound. Columbia County. Georgia. Papers of the
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Harvard University, Vol. 14,
No. 1 Cambridge
Cleland, Charles E.

1976 The Focal-Diffuse Model: An Evolutionary Perspectivein the Prehistoric Cul-
tural Adaptation of the Eastern United States. Midcontinental Journal of Ar-
chaeology 1 (1)
Cowgill, George

1975 A Selection of Samples: Comments on Archaeo-Statistics in James W. Muel-
ler, ed. Sampling in Archaeology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson

26

Martinez, Carlos

1975 Cultural Sequence on the Central Georgia Coast 1000 BC - 1650 AD. MA
Thesis, University of Florida
Mueller, James W. ed.

1975 Sampling in Archaeology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson
Sears, William H.

1964 The Southeastern United States, in J. Jennings and E. Norbeck, eds. Prehisto-
ric Man in the New World. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Sheldon, Craig T.

1976 An Archaeological Survey of Colonel's Island, Georgia Report on File, The
Georgia Ports Authority, Savannah, Georgia

Steinen, Karl T.

1977 Archaeological Investigations in Early County Georgia: A Settlement Model
for Kolomoki. Paper presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for
American Archaeology.

Williams, Stephen, ed.

1968 The Waring Papers: The Collected Works of Antonio J. Waring, Jr. Papers of
the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University,
Cambridge

27

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28

THE HISTORY AND HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY OF COLONEL'S ISLAND

Theresa Singleton**

A Retrospective Look at the Colonel's Island Historic Sites

The archaeological investigations undertaken at the historical
sites of Colonel's Island in 1977 predate the emergence of planta-
tion archaeology as the well-established research interest it has
become today. Since 1977, the systematic study of plantation
archaeological resources which first began at sites along coastal
Georgia has spread to other areas throughout the American South
and the Caribbean (see Singleton 1985). Within a decade, planta-
tion archaeology has evolved from being largely descriptive to be-
ing much more problem-oriented and analytical. The following
study of Colonel's Island, though characteristic of the early de-
scriptive studies in plantation archaeology, continues to be signifi-
cant because of the recovery of archaeological resources presuma-
bly associated with recently emanciapated slaves. At that time
and now, few sites have provided discernible features associated
with the early years of emancipation. Thus, unlike the archaeo-
logical record of slavery, archaeologists are just at the beginning
stages of understanding the archaeolgical record of emanciation.

Recent investigations of well-documented freedmen sites lo-
cated on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, have shed new light
to the understanding of the archaeological resources of Colonel's
Island. This freedmen settlement known as Mitchelville was estab-
lished in 1862 by the Union Army during its occupation of the
South Carolina coast and continued to be occupied until the early
1880's (Tarinkley 1986). Mitchelville was part of the "Port Royal
Experiment", a program in the South Carolina sea islands in-
tended to keep black laborers working for white planters. Black
laborers were placed on contracts with white landowners and the
Northerners established the work routines, the wages to be paid,
and time required to complete the job.

Both the archaeological and historical descriptions of Mitch-

** Direct correspondence to: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560

29

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 26 (1987)

elville indicate that it was indeed a very different kind of freed-
men settement than that at Colonel's Island. Mitchelville was a
substantial freedmen settlement with dwellings and other struc-
tures comparable to those recovered on plantations. On the other
hand, Colonel's Island had makeshift, impermanent structures
which strongly suggested that it was a temporary site occupied by
freedmen who, perhaps, attempted to settle lands that became
part of "Sherman's Reservation" (a 40 mile-wide belt extending
south from Charleston, South Carolina to around Jacksonville,
Florida ) established to resettle ex-slaves. Although this resettle-
ment effort lasted less than two years, because of it, many freed-
men continued to squat on these lands until driven off by owners.
Historical descriptions suggest that the quality of freedmen
settlement varied widely. Those like Mitchelville were intended to
be permanent and archaeological resorces reflect this. Other
freedemn settlements, like those on Colonel's Island, may have
functioned as squatters camps or other kinds of temporary occu-
pations. After ten years, it is still not certain that that the
archaeological resources at Colonel's Island are those left by
freedemn, but this interpretation has been stregthened by addi-
tional archaeological and historical research.

Introduction

Investigations of the socio-cultural milieu of antebellum plan-
tation sites have received increasing attention by archaeologists in
recent years. In the southeastern United States, the coastal region
of Georgia has been a focal area for much of this research.
(Ascher and Fairbanks 1971; MacFarlane 1975; Otto 1975).
These exploratory studies have been extremely useful in supple-
menting the historical record of the Old South. It was hoped that
archaeological investigations of the Parland Plantation sites at
Colonel's Island would contribute additional findings to the data
base of Plantation Phase archaeology. Unfortunately, the sites of
both the planter's and the slaves' habitats were greatly disturbed
by post-Civil War occupations. At the Parland site, WGC 356,
the major disturbance occurred during the well-documented 1888
industrial development of Colonel's Island. The post 1865 tempo^
ral placement of the slave site, WGC 903, was based primarily
upon the occurrence of an 1867 nickel near one of the structures.
The nature of the material assemblage and the nickel are sug-

30

gested here to be evidence of a post-Civil War occupation of black
freedmen. To my knowledge, this is the first archaeological evi-
dence of postbellum black freedmen on the Georgia coast. The
suggestion that this site was inhabited by freedmen and not by
slaves gave rise to an examination of the similarities and differ-
ences in the material culture between slaves and freedmen.

Although the investigations of the Parland Plantation sites
did not meet the expectations of the researchers, this study offers
two major contributions. First, it adds to the historical record of
the antebellum period. The documentary account of the Parland
Plantation at Colonel's Island provides some insights into the op-
eration of small, unfamiliar plantations. Plantations of this type
have been, for the most part, neglected in the historical record.
Second, in the archaeological record, the interpretation of black
freedmen on the Georgia coast will add another dimension to the
study of black settlements, an emerging concern in historical ar-
chaeology, and to the archaeological record of status differences.

Documentary Sources For Colonel's Island

Documentary sources for Colonel's Island can be loosely clas-
sified into three time periods: Antebellum, Civil War, and Postbel-
lum. Of the three, the antebellum period records were the most
extensive archival sources uncovered. These describe in considera-
ble detail the operation of the Parland plantations. The Civil War
source consists of one document describing Union occupation of
the island during the war. Postbellum records are of two kinds,
first, annual inventories of property still in possession by Parland
heirs; second, records of the industrial developments that had
taken place at Colonel's Island after the Parland heirs finally sold
the island in the late 1880's.

Colonel's Island was first owned by James Forrester, who ac-
quired the island through several royal grants in 1765 and 1766
(Candler 1907). It is not known in what ways Forrester developed
Colonel's Island or even if he resided there, but he evidently did
not keep the island very long, and in 1769, he sold the island to
Andrew Cunningham (McVeigh ms). After Cunningham's
purchase Colonel's Island passed through several hands until John
Parland's purchase in the early 1830's.

Parland, a native Scotsman, served as a justice of the inferior
court, and he was also a member of the grand jury in Georgia, in

31

Glynn County (The Georgia Genealogical Magazine 1962). Be-
sides Colonel's Island, he owned at least three other plantations,
Longwood, the Dyke, and Gowrie. In 1833, Parland was married
to Mary Ann Scarlett, and they had two daughters, Jean Adams
Parland and Frances Ann Scarlett Parland. Parland was killed in
a fall from a horse in 1836, and his grave is located at the main
settlement of the plantation, WGC 356. Because Parland died in-
testate, his property had to be appraised and disbursed, and these
records are the documents which have provided the details of the
operation of the Parland Plantations. The estate was divided
equally between Parland's daughters, and from 1837 to 1857,
Francis M. Scarlett, Mary Ann Parland's father, was appointed
guardian for the management of the estate (The Georgia Genea-
logical Magazine 1962:269). After Scarlett's death, Jean Par-
land's husband, Henry C. King, assumed responsibilities for
Jean's share of the estate, and Francis D. Scarlett, Francis M.
Parland's son, assumed responsibilities for Frances Ann Parland's
share, for she was confined to the mental hospital in Milledgeville,
Georgia.

Beginning in 1867, Frances D. Scarlett began selling and
leasing portions of the land on Colonel's Island and Longwood
plantations. Between 1874 and 1886, Scarlett made several peti-
tions to the court to sell the remainder of Longwood and Colonel's
Island in order to pay for Frances Ann's expenses at the mental
hospital. Finally, in 1886, all of the land at Colonel's Island and
Longwood was sold, and this marked an end to the Parland/Scar-
lett ownership of Colonel's Island, which had lasted over fifty
years (Glynn County Court House Records).

The Parland/Scarlett ownership was succeeded by a number
of entrepreneurs who sought a massive industrial development of
the island. These men envisioned the establishment of a port city,
South Brunswick, which would compete with the one on the main-
land. The idea for industrial development of the island began with
W.T. Penniman, a Brunswick surveyor, who, with financiers from
Atlanta and New York, formed the Brunswick Harbor and Land
Company in 1888 (McVeigh ms). Within a year, the company
built a railroad to the island, docks and warehouses for the export
of cotton, cotton seed oil, meal, and naval stores (South Brunswick
Terminal Railroad Company). The industrial development of the
island failed for several reasons. First it was not commercially via-
ble, for there was not enough cotton produced in the Brunswick

32

area to export and second, natural disasters, including a yellow
fever epidemic and a hurricane in 1898 contributed to the failure
of the development (Sheldon 1977). Colonel's Island was aban-
doned by the developers in 1900 and for the next thirty years it
was leased at $300 a year for pasture land (McVeigh ms.).

In 1934, Raymond Massey bought Colonel's Island and built
a cabin of logs and tabby at the northwest end of the island. The
Masseys resided there until Mr. Massey's death in 1954, and Mrs.
Massey sold the property to the state of Georgia (Glynn County
Courthouse Records).

During the antebellum period, Colonel's Island appears to
have been a fairly successful plantation, but its post-war industrial
development was very short lived. The one period of which there is
no clear understanding of the economic conditions present on the
island is during the postbellum period from immediately after the
war up to 1888. There is a suggestion from the documents that
the land was farmed by tenant farmers, undoubtedly ex-slaves, for
there are receipts for the rental of land during this time.

Description of Sites

Field activities for the historic component of the project in-
cluded mapping of the sites, excavations, and a systematic surface
collection of the tidal flats below WGC 356. As with the prehisto-
ric phase of the program, the excavations were designed to deter-
mine the nature of the different components of the site and to
recover floral and faunal data. Particular attention was paid to the
problem of defining aspects of the social stratification of the Par-
land Plantation.

WGC 356

At WGC 356, 5 cultural features were defined at the time of
excavation. These included: Feature 1, a large mound; Feature 2,
a concentration of clay brick immediately to the south of the large
mound; Feature 3, a large rectangular mound with a brick con-
centration on the surface; Feature 4, the brick lined well; and Fea-
ture 5, the burial of John Parland. Excavation units were placed
in or near these defined features or in other areas of cultural
debris.

33

6*UNSWlt

Topographic Map of WGC 356, The Parland Plantation Site,
Showing the Location of Test Units.

34

Test 1. Test 1 was established on an oyster shell midden that con-
tained historic artifacts. This test was originally a 10 x 10 foot
unit which was later reduced to 5 x 5 feet because of the low
artifact concentration within the test. The test was excavated us-
ing natural stratigraphy, and 4 strata were recognized. These
were: Stratum I, black humus; Stratum II, consolidated oyster
shell and black humus; Stratum III, dark brown sand; and Stra-
tum IV, brown and yellow mottled sand. Stratum I contained arti-
facts to late pre-Civil War times (circa 1850), while Stratum IV
was a prehistoric occupation.

Test 2. Test 2, a 10 x 10 foot unit, was placed directly to the
south of Feature 2. Because no in situ bricks were found in Fea-
ture 2, it was hoped that this test would aid in the identification of
the structure. Like Test 1, Test 2 was excavated in natural strati-
graphic zones and it was reduced in size (to 5 x 5 feet) after the
removal of Stratum I. Three strata were defined and these were
characteristic of the undisturbed portion of the site. They include:
Stratum I, black humus with crushed shell; Stratum II, brown
and grey mottled soil with shell flecks; and Stratum III, yellow
and brown mottled sand. A large number of antebellum materials
were recovered from Stratum I. The occurrence of a few modern
artifacts prevented the assignment of the provenience to the ante-
bellum period. This was unfortunate, since this provenience con-
tained the best stratigraphic evidence of a plantation midden from
any of he tests at WGC 356. Stratum II was temporarily antebel-
lum, but contained virtually no cultural material.
Test 3. A 5 x 5 foot excavation unit was placed in Feature 1 for
the purpose of identifying this structure. Excavation of Test 3 re-
vealed that Feature 1 was not a structural mound, but a mound of
construction fill that was evidently formed when the main access
road to the site was built. Test 3 and all subsequent units at the
site were excavated in order to segregate modern occupational
levels from plantation period levels. The stratigraphy of Test 3
consisted of 2 strata: Stratum I, grey and brown sandy fill and
Stratum II, black sandy soil. Stratum II appeared to have been
the original humus zone, but it contained so few artifacts that ex-
cavation of it was discontinued.

Test 4. a 5 x 20 foot unit was placed at the eastern most edge of
Feature 3. In probing Feature 3, in-place bricks were uncovered at
the southeastern edge of the feature and of the Test 4. Excava-
tions unearthed a leaning, clay brick chimney designated as Fea-

35

ture 3a. No construction trench could be determined, but late
19th century artifacts were found all around it, which suggests
that the structure dates from the 1888 development. Besides the
chimney, a small rectangular pit filled with clay brick rubble was
designated as Feature 3b. This feature may have been a building
pier for the structure, which had been robbed of its brick. A large
mound of construction debris, especially plaster fragments with
lathing marks, were found throughout the test. Evidently, the
structure had plaster walls. Unfortunately, reasons for the leaning
appearance of he chimney as well as the orientation and function
of the structure could not be determined.

Test 5. A 5 x 10 foot unit was located on the bluff overlooking the
river. The test was excavated to determine the stratigraphy associ-
ated with the seawall construction. The stratigraphy was found to
be quite complex, and the strata defined are all layers of construc-
tion fill. Artifacts from this test ranged from prehistoric to mod-
ern. Notable among the artifacts recovered were a number of 18th
century materials, possible associated with the Forrester
occupation.

Test 6. Test 6 was the excavation of well fill from Feature 4. Fea-
ture 4 was apparently constructed during the antebellum period,
since this type of well construction is typical of coastal plantations
(Wrightman and Cate 1955:55). In addition, the plantation
records for the Parland Plantation indicate the purchase of 3000
well bricks in the late 1830's. A total of 1438 bricks in thirty-six
courses were used in the construction of the well at WGC 356.
Perhaps the remaining well bricks were used at one of the other
plantations in the Parland complex. The construction of he well
was a ring rather than a pit well, for it was lined with wedge-
shaped brick.

The well was exposed at the time of excavation and it was
apparently cleaned out periodically and used until modern times.
Most of the cultural material from the well was very modern, and
a terminus post quern of 1960 was derived for the well fill.
Test 7. This test was not an excavation unit, but a vertical facing
5 feet deep taken of the bluff to determine the stratigraphy of the
seawall. The stratigraphy was very similar to Test 5.
Test 8. A 5 x 5 foot unit was located approximately 30 feet south
of Feature 4. Placement of a unit in this location was based upon
the presence of historic artifacts scattered on the ground surface.
Few historic artifacts were recovered from the test, but a consid-

36

erable number of aboriginal ceramics and chert flakes were
present.

Test 9. A 6 x 9 foot unit was placed near the main access road,
where an abundance of historic artifacts and scattered brick frag-
ments were found on the ground surface. The stratigraphy of the
test indicated that the test was simply road fill and was totally
disturbed.

Test 10. A 10 x 10 foot unit was placed through a low-lying de-
pression. Excavations uncovered a circular dark area apparent at
the base of the first stratum. Further excavation of this feature
revealed that is was simply a burned out tree root. Little cultural
material came from this test.

Test 77. A 5 x 5 foot unit was placed adjacent to the well (Fea-
ture 4), and was excavated for the purpose of defining the well
casing. Apparently, the materials in the test were part of the con-
struction fill of the 1888 development, and at one of the lowest
levels of the test, an 1888 penny was found. Despite this distur-
bance, the test was successful in exposing the profile of the north
side of the well's upper casing.

Despite the fact that the excavation of WGC 356 yielded a
number of antebellum period contexts, the stratigraphy of the site
suggests that most of the site was disturbed in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Association of the midden areas with planta-
tion period structures was impossible, therefore, no statement re-
garding the plantation period occupation could be made. Simi-
larly, no substantial description could be made concerning the one
structure (Feature 3) associated with the 1888 development. Arti-
facts were in general very scarce. This occurrence is easily ex-
plained, for the plantation period refuse was evidently disposed of
in the tidal flats, below the site. The infrequency of artifacts for
the 1888 development is also understandable, since the settlement
survived for only a few years. Sampling error should not be ruled
out as a cause for the small amount of artifacts recovered. It is
doubtful however that more excavations would have turned up
anything else regarding to the behavioral aspects of the site. The
disturbed nature of WGC 356 precluded the formulation of a sub-
stantive statement of behavioral activities that had taken place
during either the antebellum or postbellum periods.

Tida! Zone

Along the beach of the tidal river to the north of WGC 356,

37

five 100 foot length units were designated for the surface collec-
tion. These units were assigned consecutive letters A to E, and all
of the cultural materials present on the ground surface within the
boundaries of the grid were collected. Units, A and E, contained
very little cultural material, while the units between them, con-
tained a large quantity of artifacts. Materials dated from the ear-
liest prehistoric occupation to modern, but the majority of historic
artifacts were from the antebellum period. A number of late 18th
century artifacts, perhaps remnants of the Forrester occupation,
were recovered, but most artifacts were of the period between
1800 and 1850. Of all the historic sites at Colonel's Island, the
tidal flats contained the highest number and greatest varieties of
19th century antebellum remains. Large industrial artifacts such
as spikes and pulleys were probably evidence of the 1888 develop-
ment. Further out in the river, the piers for a dock approximately
500 feet in length were identified. This was most likely the re-
mains of the 500 foot cotton dock from the 1888 development.

The high concentration of plantation period artifacts along
the tidal flats suggest that the river was the site for much of re-
fuse disposal. A similar trend has been recognized at the Rayfield
Plantation on Cumberland Island, Georgia. Such disposal prac-
tices are fairly common on the Georgia Coast (Larson 1977) and
in other areas where a ravine or gully is present (Sheldon 1977).
While such observations may be obvious, the implications for his-
toric archaeology are important. This may very well be a behav-
ioral pattern that has not been recognized: that for domestic sites
located on a bluff, the river front or gully is a likely site for the
major refuse disposal.

WGC 903

Eight features were designated at WGC 903. These included
Features 1, 2, and 3, which were all structural mounds with tabby
brick chimneys; Feature 4, a large depression in which a barrel
well was uncovered; and Feature 5, a large oyster shell midden
with evidence of historic artifacts on the surface. Features 6 and 8
were apparently structures at one time, but they had been dis-
turbed. Feature 7 was a disturbed midden area associated with
Feature 6. A total of sixteen units were placed in and around
these features and were excavated. Like WGC 356, the tests are
referred to by numbers assigned according to the order in which

38

they were excavated. With the exception of Tests 3 and 8 (Fea-
tures 4 and 8), the stratigraphy of WGC 903 was composed of
three strata: Stratum I, black humus; Stratum II, brown sand and
Stratum III, tan/yellow/mottled sand. Most of the historic mate-
rial came from Stratum I. Since several tests were often placed on
one feature, the discussion of the excavation is presented in terms
of cultural features and not according to excavation units.
Feature I. (Includes Tests 9, 10, 11). Clearing of Feature 1 un-
earthed a tabby brick chimney designated as Feature Id. Around
Feature Id an excavation unit of 15 x 10 feet was placed. This
unit was divided into two smaller ones: a 10 x 10 foot unit, Test
10, and a 10 x 5 foot unit, Test 9. The unit was divided to facili-
tate separation of the area west of the hearth, which would be
inside the structure (Test 9) and the area to the east of the chim-
ney, which would be outside the structure (Test 10). Another test,
Test 1 1, was also established adjacent to Test 10, to define further
the area outside the structure. Within Test 11, a large section of
consolidated chimney rubble was uncovered, and it consisted of
seven courses of tabby brick. This consolidated rubble was desig-
nated as Feature la, and it was composed of both whole bricks
and fragments. Besides Features la and Id, three other features
were recognized: Feature lb, a slight depression in the upper sur-
face of Stratum II, which was filled with brick rubble; and Fea-
ture lc, an area of coarse, light sand. The function of Feature lc
could not be determined. Feature le was an area of dark fill asso-
ciated with aboriginal pottery.

Most of the excavation of Feature 1 was centered on the
chimney, Feature Id. The profile consisted of four strata: Stratum
I, bricks laid in place with humus or mud; Stratum II, immedi-
ately below the bricks, a deposit of light brown/grey sand and
whole oyster shell, which had been carefully flattened as a bed for
the bricks in the hearth; and Stratum III, a layer of burned oyster
shells with small fragments of charcoal. It appears that this may
have been an attempt at making tabby. Stratum IV was similar to
Stratum II of the entire site.

Mortar was completely absent from the horizontal surfaces of
the tabby bricks. Some bricks did have mortar on them, but this
mortar appears to have been used to fill in or square off chips,
spoils and missing corners. The use of mortar for this purpose
strongly suggests that the bricks were re-used. In addition, dried
mortar from former use was present on most of the clay-fired

39

bricks. Indications are that reused clay and tabby bricks were em-
ployed in the construction of the chimneys. Approximately seventy
bricks or parts of bricks were uncovered from Feature Id. This
number seems grossly insufficient for a chimney and indicates that
the chimney was not only small but was also short. Evidently the
remainder of the structure was log or frame. No wall trenches,
fitting ditches, building piers or other structural features were
identified with the structure.

A number of artifacts were found in and around the chimney
and significant artifacts were mapped to document their horizon-
tal distribution. Several artifacts appeared to have been broken
before the chimney collapsed, which suggests that refuse was dis-
posed of under the house. This pattern of trash disposal was also
characteristic of Feature 2, therefore, it may be tentatively con-
cluded that daily trash was disposed of very near the house.
Feature 2. Feature 2 was divided into two areas: Feature 2 struc-
tural area (Tests 1, 2, 4, 5, 15) and Feature 2 midden area, di-
rectly to he east of the structure (Tests 12, 13, 14, 16). The struc-
tural details of Feature 2 were in many ways identical to Feature
1 and these will not be repeated. Despite the similarities between
the two, the relationship of Feature 1 to Feature 2 was never de-
termined. It is important to remember that the size and type of
structures which were characterized by these features are not
known. Two interesting structural features did appear in the Fea-
ture 2 area. The first was thought to be a possible building pier
and it was designated as Feature 2a. This was one course of laid
brick. Further considerations suggested that these bricks were not
part of a building pier, but were most likely part of the chimney
fall. In test 1, two post holes, Features 2b and 2c were found at
the northern edge of the test. Unfortunately, no material came out
of these and they are impossible to date. Their proximity to the
chimney suggests that either the chimney was centrally located or
that these are the remains of an earlier structure, perhaps the
structure from which the re-used brick had been taken. It is
doubtful that the first possibility is true, since no evidence of a
duplex structure was uncovered. In either case,the relationship of
the post holes with Feature 2d could not be determined.

Numerous artifacts were found in Feature 2 and a simple
pattern of disposing of trash under the house appears evident. Ap-
parently old construction wood was used for fuel, as a large num-
ber of burned nails were recovered from the hearth area. Burned

40

nails were also present in the hearths of Features 1 and 3. The
midden area east of the structure contained a number of both or-
ganic and inorganic items including bone, nut shells, peach pits,
ceramics and other artifacts. In Test 13, a refuse pit was desig-
nated as Feature 13a. The pit was very close to the ground surface
and it was fairly shallow. The feature appears to have been an
area where trash accumulated, and over time, the deposit was bur-
ied. A post mold within Test 12 and designated as 12a was pre-
sent within an enormous post hole. The association of this post
mold with the two in Test 1 could not be determined, for again, no
cultural material was present.

Feature 3. This area was not excavated, but the area was cleared
so that the chimney could be examined and it appeared to have
been identical to Features Id and 2d. The hearth was excavated
and a few nail and iron fragments were recovered.
Feature 4. (The Barrel Well). Before the excavation of Feature 4,
a post hole digger was driven in and around the depression in or-
der to determine the stratigraphy of the feature and to see if there
was any evidence for a well or privy structure. From the post hole
test placed in the center of Feature 4 a sherd of Shell-edged
Pearlware was recovered, and the stratigraphy indicated that
there was indeed a deep deposition of cultural material within the
feature. An excavation unit measuring 8x8 feet was placed
around Feature 4. Only half of the test was excavated, thereby
exposing a vertical profile of the well's interior. A barrel well
within a square shaped casing made of upright two by four foot
boards was uncovered. Besides the primary well casing, there was
also evidence of a secondary well casing, the reasons for which are
unknown. The southern portion of the well slightly was leaning to
the southern wall of the unit and it had buckled inwards. Simi-
larly, upright boards of the casing were also leaning, but to the
north. The leaning of the casing walls suggests that an attempt
was made to remove the casing but for unknown reasons ths ac-
tion was abruptly sttopped. The well was approximately 13 feet
deep and eight strata were identified. Stratum I was grey-black
sandy humus, and Stratum II, light grey/brown soil. Few artifacts
were recovered from these strata. Stratum III was mottled light
brown sand sloping to the edges of the unit and was virtually ster-
ile soil with exception of a few small fragments of glass an oyster
shell. Stratum IV, a bright yellow sterile sand, consisted of con-
struction fill between the walls of the excavation and the actual

41

well shaft. Stratum V was sterile white sand encountered between
Stratum III and the mottled sterile sand of Stratum Ilia. Stratum
VI was the casing fill and Stratum VII was a white sand that
occurred with alternating thin layers of black casing fill. These
layers were alluvially deposited, and this indicates that when the
well was opened sand and soil were working into the well. Stratum
VII, a layer of white sand mottled with grey, was found at the
base of the barrel. At approximately five feet below ground level,
the water table was reached, and excavation of the well was
terminated.

Surprisingly few artifacts were present in either the well
shaft fill or in the well fill. The few artifacts found do suggest that
both the construction and filling of the well could have occurred
during the antebellum period. If the well is an antebellum feature,
then its association with Features 1 and 2 is dubious. The occur-
rence of one artifact does suggest that there is an association be-
tween the two, and that was the occurrence of a blue faceted tube
bead from the well construction fill (Stratum III). An identical
bead was also found in the midden area around Feature 2. It is
assumed here that these three features are of a comparable time
period.

Feature 5. (The Oyster Shell Midden, Test 3). A 5 x 20 foot
trench, Test 3, was placed through the center of the oyster shell
midden bisecting the interior. Three strata were recognized: Stra-
tum I, humus and unconsolidated oyster shell; Stratum II, brown
soil with oyster shell; and Stratum III, mottled tan to yellow sand.
Several features were defined below the oyster shell. These in-
cluded a number of areas thought to have been post holes, but
which were later demonstrated to be tree roots, and two presumed
fire pits. The presumed fire pits contained heavy concentrations of
charcoal and the soil and the artifacts within the features were
burned. These features tapered into deep root holes, which sug-
gests that they were either fire pits superimposed over root holes,
or that the entire features are burned root holes. A number of
artifacts were uncovered in Strata I and II and these evidently
represent deposits of oyster shell and refuse. Like Feature 4, the
contents of oyster shell midden also date to the plantation period.
The presence of oyster shell middens at slave settlements were
fairly common in antebellum times. At Butler Point Plantation on
St. Simon's Island, Fanny Kemble commented on their common
occurrence.

42

. . .1 hardly saw where I was going, for I as nearly as
possible fell over a great heap of oyster shells left in the
middle of the path. This is a horrid nuisance, which re-
sults from an indulgence which the people here have and
value highly; the waters around the island are prolific in
shellfish, oysters, and the most magnificent prawns I saw.
The former are considerable articles of the people's diet
and the shells are allowed to accumulate, as they are
used in the composition of which their huts are built, and
which is a sort of combination of mud and broken oyster
shells, which forms an agglomeration of a kind very solid
and durable for such building purposes (tabby); but in-
stead of being carried to a specific place out of the way,
these great heaps of oyster shells are allowed to be piled
up anywhere and everywhere, forming the most unsightly
obstructions in every direction. (Kemble [1863]
1961:257)

Oyster shell middens were also present at Cannon's Point
Plantation (MacFarland 1975). The presence of oyster shell mid-
dens at slave settlements before the Civil War does not mean that
they were not at the settlements of ex-slaves after the Civil War.
Although no particular artifacts within the oyster shell midden
point to an association with other features, the location of the
midden approximately halfway between Features 1 and 2 and
Feature 3 suggests that they are of a comparable time period.
Features 6, 7, 8. Only one unit was excavated in the disturbed
portion of the site, and that was placed over the disturbed midden
(Feature 7). Feature 8, the possible tabby structure, was appar-
ently disturbed by the construction of the main access road to the
site. The disturbance of Features 6 and 8 occurred as the result of
an unreported excavation by an untrained digger. A test was
placed on the previously excavated midden area in the hopes that
the disturbance might be isolated and some data on the structure
in this portion of the site could be obtained. Unfortunately, the
stratigraphy of the test revealed that this area was too disturbed
to provide any information on either the structures or the midden
deposit. Examination of the bricks from the structure does indi-
cate that these were put in place with mortar. Since the artifacts
from the midden area date to the antebellum period, it may be
that these structures are the only remnants of the plantation pe-

43

riod at WGC 903.

Test 7. A very small oyster shell midden was located some dis-
tance to the southeast of Feature 4. This midden was not desig-
nated as a feature, but a small 5x5 foot test unit, was excavated.
Very little material came out of the test, and it was accidentally
mixed with a provenience from another site during the prelimi-
nary processing of the artifacts. As a result, no significant data
was obtained from the test.

To summarize, the major emphasis of the excavations at
WGC 903 was placed upon the excavation of the two structures,
Features 1 and 2. The only construction feature remaining from
these are the chimneys which were evidently constructed from re-
used materials. Although many of the artifacts date to the ante-
bellum period, the occurrence of a U.S. 1867 nickel and the na-
ture of the artifacts are suggestive of the scarcity rampant in the
South in postbellum times. Besides the structures, a barrel well
and an oyster shell midden were also excavated and these are un-
doubtedly artifacts of postbellum times. The only features that are
possibly of the antebellum period are the structures that have
been disturbed by very modern intervention.

WGC 905

WGC 905 is located in an environmental situation similar to
WGC 903 except that it is closer to water. No excavations of the
historic component of WGC 905 were undertaken, but two tabby
structures were designated as Features 1 and 2, and the distance
between the two was approximately 101 feet. Feature 2 has been
robbed of most of its brick and has no walls, corners, or in-place
bricks. On the other hand, Feature 1 had a number of in-place
bricks and the orientation of the hearth area was easily recog-
nized. From the available indications the chimney structures ap-
pear to have been similar to WGC 903, but the bricks were some-
what thicker and have more mortar on them than the ones at
WGC 903. A depression was designated as Feature 3, and was
approximately 57 feet from Feature 2 and about 84 feet from
Feature 1. WGC 905 was most likely one of the slave settlement,
and it was possibly occupied after the Civil War by ex-slaves.

A large irregular shaped canal running perpendicular to the
marsh was also identified at WGC 905. At the widest point of the
canal, where it runs into the marsh, several hewn timber piles

44

with wrought iron spikes were present, and these appeared to have
been part of a dock or bridge. The presumed function of the ditch
was for agriculture purposes, possibly for draining a low area.

Slave and Ex-Slave: WGC 903 and Cannon's Point.

A recent historical study of black Americans suggested that
the behavior of blacks during the post-emancipation period (circa
1861 to 1867) is the best evidence for making an assessment of
the long-term impact of slavery upon black culture and personal-
ity (Gutman 1976). An examination of the material conditions of
black Americans during and after slavery should provide some in-
dices for the similarities and differences in black American behav-
ior during and after slavery. Historical sources indicate that as a
consequence of the Civil War, severe material suffering character-
ized the life of most ex-slaves immediately following emancipa-
tion, making their material condition worse in freedom than it was
in slavery. The comparison of the material culture from an ante-
bellum slave site and from a post-war ex-slave site should reflect
these conditions. Using two sites on the Georgia Coast, a slave
site, Cannon's Point, and a freedman site, WGC 903, these simi-
larities and differences were examined. Cannon's Point was se-
lected because, to date, it has provided the most complete
archaeological data on slave settlements on the Georgia Coast. Al-
though confirmation of a postbellum date for WGC 903 is needed,
it was felt that comparison of WGC 903 with a slave settlement
would point to some distinct elements of WGC 903 that would aid
in its identification as either a slave or an ex-slave site. Analysis
and interpretations of the artifactual materials are treated in this
section. The artifact categories were taken from MacFarlane
(1975) in order to facilitate a comparison between the two sites.

Cabin Construction

Both the slave cabins and the ex-slave cabins were frame or
log structures with tabby chimneys. Although the structures at
both sites had brick chimneys, the ex-slave chimneys were made
of reused tabby and clay bricks, and were laid in place with mud
instead of mortar. On the other hand, the slave chimneys were
well built and made from substantial materials. One of the slave
cabins was a duplex or two-family compartment (MacFarlane
1975:62-70), while the ex-slave cabins were apparently one-family

45

units. Glass windows were virtually absent at both sites, for few
windowpane fragments were recovered from either site. Evidence
of a wooden floor was present at the slave site, but was completely
lacking at the ex-slave site, where the cabins appeared to have
been built directly on the ground surface. From all the available
indications the slave cabin was well built, whereas the ex-slave
cabin was made from re-used materials and was haphazardly
constructed.

Household Equipment

Quantities of ceramics from the slave and freedmen sites
were considerably different. At the slave site a total of 509 sherds
were recovered, and only 248 sherds were recovered for the ex-
slave site. At first this discrepancy was thought to be sampling
error, but the sherds from the ex-slave site were composed of only
a few ceramic types and vessel forms. At the slave site, the ceram-
ics represent a variety of types and vessel forms (MacFarlane
1975:8-102). Eating and cooking utensils were absent at the freed-
man's site with the exception of two iron spoon fragments and
possibly some parts of an iron kettle. At the slave site, the utensils
included iron tongs, numerous kettle and pot fragments, and sev-
eral spoons and forks for eating. There was no evidence of drink-
ing vessels at the freedman's site with the exception of a few glass
decanter fragments. At the slave site both decanter and tumbler
fragments were evident.

Several brass upholstery tacks and iron bail pulls suggested
that furniture was present at the slave site. The tacks were appar-
ently from very fine quality furnishings, quite likely cast-off pieces
from the planter (MacFarlane 1975:114). The only evidence of
furniture at the freedman's site was a glass drawer pull.

The ex-slave appears to have had little in the way of house-
hold equipment, and furnishings of the slave were varied and were
probably obtained through purchase as well as through the
planter.

46

:

Agricultural and Household Artifacts from Historic Sites.

47

Personal Items

The quantity of bottles and other glass items was another ar-
tifact category of considerable difference between the two sites. A
total of 809 bottle glass sherds were recovered from the slave site,
while only 303 sherds were found from the ex-slave site. The con-
tents of the bottles were similar for both sites, exclusively liquor
and pharmaceutical products. This suggests that similar products
were selected for both during and after slavery.

No differences could be inferred from the remains of wearing
apparel. Buttons were the predominant artifact within this cate-
gory. In addition to buttons, buckles and overall hitches were re-
covered from both sites, and at the ex-slave site, leather shoe sole
fragments were also found. The similarity in wearing apparel sug-
gests that similar clothing was worn by both the slave and ex-
slave.

Tobacco pipes occurred frequently throughout the slave site,
but these occurred in very small quantities at the ex-slave site.
Small frequencies at the ex-slave site may be an indicator that
tobacco was a difficult commodity to come by during the early
post-war years.

Included among the personal items were a few artifacts,
which are referred to here as "luxury items", because they appear
to be somewhat elaborate possessions for either a slave or an ex-
slave. At the slave site, those items included a jewel, a clear glass
bead, a dangle for a woman's earring, and two knives with hand-
carved bone handles. The ex-slave site had a few "luxury items"
including beads, a lady's brooch, a lady's locket, and a male's
wedding ring made from a copper alloy. The occurrence of these
items at either the slave or ex-slave site could have been through
either theft or purchase, and these items are indications of another
similarity between the two sites. In addition to these "luxury
items", graphite pencils were recovered at both sites. The occur-
rence of pencils at the ex-slave site is understandable, since the
freedmen did have access to schools. The presence of pencils at
the slave site, however, is contrary to historical accounts and may
indicate that slaves did have some opportunities provided for
learning.

In general, selection for certain personal items indicated a
marked degree of similarity. These items, however, occurred in
greater numbers at the slave site than at the ex-slave site. Un-

48

doubtedly, these items would have been more scarce immediately
after the war than before the war.

Tools

Three round-eye hoes were recovered from the slave site and
only one was recovered from the ex-slave site. The hoe from the
ex-slave site was worn very badly, and it appeared to have been
used even after it had fallen apart. This artifact particularly indi-
cates the degree of scarcity in post-war times.

Food Resources and Food Procurement

The faunal remains at the two slave sites were very similar.
Domestic animal species included cattle and swine. Chicken was
present in very small amounts at the slave cabin sites and was
entirely absent at the ex-slave sites. A wide variety of wild ani-
mals were procured at both sites. At least seven deer were con-
sumed at the freedman's site, where as deer were completely ab-
sent at the slave site. Of all the wild species remains present, deer
is the only species that would require the use of firearms to be
hunted. The presence of the deer at the ex-slave sites does suggest
that they had access to guns, and the evidence of firearms at the
ex-slave site confirms this supposition. In general, slaves were not
allowed to have guns. The absence of deer at the slave site can
therefore be explained. Evidence of firearms was present at the
slave site, but the provenience of these artifacts was uncertain
(MacFarlane 1975:170). As a result, it is unclear whether the
slaves at Cannon's Point had guns or not. If it is assumed that
they did not have guns, the absence of deer may be explained. On
the other hand, if the slaves at Cannon's Point did in fact have
guns, the absence of deer may reflect the absence of deer on the
island, or may simply reflect personal tastes.

In conclusion, the archaeological evidence supports the histor-
ical accounts that the material conditions of the ex-slaves were the
same, if not worse, than that of the slave. The occurrence of a war
which left the entire South destitute on all socio-economic levels
can account for the impoverished nature of the artifact materials
at the ex-slave site. It can be tentatively concluded that the freed-
man site is not just an archaeological manifestation of black
freedmen's material conditions, but also evidence of the effects of
a war upon these conditions, and perhaps, of the effects of a war
on material conditions in general. Excavation of comparable post-
49

Civil War period sites occupied by whites will greatly complete
the picture of postbellum material conditions in the South. More-
over, a site of freedmen twenty or thirty years later may very well
have taken completely different appearances. With the opportuni-
ties which became available to blacks, certainly their material
condition improved as the economy of the South was restored.

These interpretations, together with documentary sources,
has been offered here as support for the identification of WGC
903 as an ex-slave site. Archaeologically, this evidence was mani-
fested in the scarcity of artifacts such as household items and cer-
tain personal items such as tobacco pipes and bottled goods, the
impoverished nature of the artifacts (such as the utilization of re-
used bricks in the house construction), the substitution of mud for
mortar, and the presence of wear marks on a hoe after it had
fallen apart. Documentary sources included the receipts of land
rentals from tenants in the postbellum plantation records, and the
Union Navy letter which indicated that slaves were living on
Colonel's Island during the Civil War. The second documentary
source is especially important, for on the coast, Sherman pro-
claimed in 1865 that all islands south of Charleston and lands
thirty miles inland were reserved for the settlement of blacks and
no white person was allowed on these lands, except military of-
ficers detailed for duty (Webster 1916:83). Although the Navy
letter was written a few years earlier, the fact that blacks were
living there before the proclamation suggests that they possibly
remained there until the Parland/Scarlett heirs reclaimed the
property at Colonel's Island, and the chances are that these ex-
slaves remained there for some time after that event. Although no
conclusive evidences are available for the suggestion that WGC
903 was occupied by ex-slaves, there are both archaeological and
documentary sources which support this position.

Summary and Conclusions

Archaeological evidence for the plantation phase occupation
at Colonel's Island provided little data on the behavioral activities
of the antebellum period. Documentary sources, however, were
highly informative, and a fairly complete description of the social-
economic management of the Parland Plantation has been offered.

Excavations at WGC 356 provided very little data on either
the antebellum period or the postbellum period. The stratigraphy

50

of most of the site indicates that the site was highly disturbed in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. No plantation structures
were identified, which prevented the association of plantation pe-
riod midden areas with plantation period structures. Similarly, no
substantial statement could be made with regards to the one
structure associated with the 1888 development. Artifact recovery
was in general very small. This situation is explainable, since ante-
bellum period refuse was discarded in the tidal flats below the site,
and the 1888 development did not last long enough to leave a
large amount of remains. The disturbance evident at the site pro-
hibited the formulation of explanations for behavioral activities
which had taken place at the site during antebellum or postbellum
times, and it is doubtful that future excavations will provide any
additional information.

A systematic collection of the materials from the tidal zone
below WGC 356 revealed that this was the site for major refuse
disposal during the antebellum period. The high frequencies of
materials such as fine china, tablewares, and imported wine bot-
tles strongly suggest that this refuse was from the planter's house.
A similar pattern of trash disposal has been noted at the Rayfield
Plantation of Cumberland Island, and at other sites along the
coast. It has been suggested here that this method of refuse dispo-
sal may be indicative of a pattern found wherever a site is located
on a bluff. The area below the site may very well be used for a
garbage dump.

Two of the structures identified at WGC 903 were excavated,
and their contents suggested that these may have been evidence of
structures inhabited by ex-slaves after the Civil War. Although a
firm date has not been established for the site, the archaeological
sources, as well as documentary sources for the Colonel's Island
site lend support to this thesis.

Despite the fact that the archaeological data provided by the
historic sites did not meet the data requirements of our initial re-
search objectives, an alternative objective was formulated. This
was the comparison of the similarities and differences between the
material conditions of ex-slaves at WGC 903 with slave settle-
ments at Cannon's Point on St. Simons Island. In general the ma-
terial conditions of the slave settlement were found to be consider-
ably better than the conditions of the ex-slaves at WGC 903. This
was the expected result, and it was concluded that the material
conditions at WGC 903 were not just an archaeological manifes-

51

tation of ex-slaves' material conditions, but also reflected the ef-
fects of the Civil War upon those conditions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ascher, Robert and Charles H. Fairbanks

1971 Excavation of a Slave Cabin: Georgia U.S.A. Historical Archaeology 5: 3-17.
Candler, Allen D.

1907 The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, Atlanta. The Franklin-Turner
Company. Vol. 9.
Clark, Deborah

1977 Colonel's Island History of Industrialization. Brunswick News August 27,
1977.
Donald, Henderson H.

1952 The Negro Freedman's Life: Conditions of the American Negro in the Early
Years After Emancipation. Henry Schuman.
Fairbanks, Charles H.

1972 The Kingsley Slave Cabins in Duval County Florida, 1968. The Conference on
Historic Sites Archaeology Papers 7:62-93.

The Georgia Genealogical Magazine

1962 Georgia Court House Records. Minutes, Glynn County Inferior Court. Vol. 1
(5):269.
Glynn County Records

ms Wills and Appraisements A-G, Deed Books H, DD, 2, AA, N W W JJ, II, 3T,
3W, 4H, 4R. Guardianships A-D.
Gutman, Herbert G.

1976 The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925. New York: Vintage
Books.
Kemble, Frances Ann

1961 A Journal of Residence on a Georgia Plantation 1838-1839. Edited by J. A.
Scott. Alfred A. Knopf. New York (1863).
Leigh, Frances Butler

1833 Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War. R. Bentley & Sons,
London.
Lorraine, Dessamae

1968 An Archaeologist's Guide to Nineteenth Century American Glass. Historical
Archaeology 2:35-44.
MacFarlane, Suzanne

1975 The Ethnoarchaeology of a Slave Cabin Community: The Couper Plantation
Site. M.A. Thesis, University of Florida, Gainesville.
McVeigh, Shaw

Ms The Development of Colonel's Island. Submitted to State Science Fair. Atlanta,
Georgia, March 1969.
Otto, John S.

1975 Status Differences and the Archaeological Record: A Comparison of Planter,
Overseer and Slave Sites from Cannon's Point Plantation (1794-1861), St.
Simons Island, Georgia. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Sheldon, Craig T.

1976 An Archaeological Survey of Colonel's Island, Georgia. Report on File, the
Georgia Ports Authority, Savannah, Ga.

Singleton, Theresa A., editor

1985 The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life. Academic Press, Orlando.

52

South Brunswick Terminal Railroad Company

MS Letter Describing Progress made in the Development of Colonel's Island, Octo-
ber 1, 1889. R.M. Scarlett Papers.
Trinkley, Michael, editor

1986 Indians and Freedmen Occupations at Fish Haul Creek Site (38BU805)
Beaufort County, South Carilina. Research Series #7, Chicora Foundation, Co-
lumbia, South Carolina.
Webster, Laura

1916 The Operation of the Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina, Smith College
Studies in History, Vol. 1, Chapters I-IV,67-181.

53

APPENDIX

Artifacts from Historic Sites

Artifact Counts Tidal Zone

Type Num

Ceramics

Whiteware

Plain

150

Transfer Print

16

Painted

1

Pearlware

139

Painted Black/White
Painted Polychrome
Annular

5

15
31

Splatterware
Plain

3

47

Marbelized

7

Shell-edged
Dendritic

158

1

Yelloware

39

Rockingham

1

Redwares

Blackglazed

22

Plain

8

Honey-colored Glaze

9

Salt glaze Stoneware

Grey

Brown

43

83

White

7

Other Stoneware

Ginger Beer Bottle

10

Blue/Grey
Brown

1
1

Alkaline Glazed

4

Miscellaneous 18th Century Wares

Slipware
Basalt Ware

2
3

Delft B/B

1

Creamware

45

Miscellaneous Ceramics

Unidentified Brown Lead Glazed

54

Turpentine cups

6

Total Ceramics

850

Type

Number

Glassware

Dark Green

Whole 2-hinged Mold Bottle
Whole 3-part Hinged Mold
Fragments

1

1

511

Clear

Whole Medicine 2-part Hinged
Fragments

1

74

Light Green

42

Brown

38

Tablewares
Pressed Glass
Depression Glass
Crystal Decanters
Blue

12

3

12

2

Total

3 whole bottles
694 fragments

Metal Artifacts

Iron

Nails

Spikes

Hinges

Pulley-like Objects

Axeheads

File

Buckles

Spoonhandles

Fragments

9

17

2

3

1

1

1

1

48

Copper/Brass Cuprious
Confederate Infantry
Flat Brass Button

Nails

Alloys
Buttons

3

1

3

Cast Metal
Spoon Fragments

1

55

Stone

Chert Flakes

3

Limestone Fishweight

1

Pipes

Stems

4/64"
5/64"
6/64"

10
4

2

Bowls

Stoneware Stub/Stem
White Clay Fragments

1
3

56

Artifact Count for WGC 356
Household Equipment

Ceramics

Whitewares

Plain

272

Transfer Printed

12

Painted (Polychrome)

2

Pearlwares

Transfer Printed

62

Shell Edged

17

Plain

33

Painted Black/White (early)

14

Painted Polychrome

15

Annular

37

Marbelized

3

Splatterware

3

Creamware

Plain

16

Yellowware

16

Rockingham

5

Redware

Plain

5

Blackglazed

1

Salt Glazed Stonewares

Brown

7

Grey

4

Other Stonewares

Ginger Beer Bottle

10

Modern Stoneware

2

Unidentified

2

Aboriginal Ceramics

239

Total Ceramics

777

Glassware

Black Glass

141

Light Green

106

Brown

23

Clear

380

Windowpane

1843

Lamp Globe

90

Tableware

Pressed

15

Miscellaneous

7

Total Glassware

2464

57

Construction Materials

Nails

Cut

3105

Wire

2

Spikes

21

Screws

3

Plaster

326

Clay Brick

282

Tabby

54

Tools

Shovel Handle

1

Files

1

Axeheads

1

Chisel

1

Hinges

4

Clothing

Buttons

Number

Measurement

Type

Porcelain

6

8mm, 9mm, 10mm

South (1964)

Type 23

Pearl

4

3mm, 8mm

Unclassified

Bone

4

18mm, 15mm, 18mm, 17mm

South Type 9
Type 32,
Unclassified

Brass

4

18mm, 15mm, 18mm, 17mm

South 1964
Tupe 9,
Type 32,
Unclass.

Iron

3

13mm, 14mm, 13mm

South (1964)
Type 21
Unclassified

Glass

1

13mm

Unclassified

Miscellaneous

Clothing Items

Female's

Jndergarment Hooks

4

Ornamental Pins

2

58

Beads

1 wire wound,
clear

Firearms

Buckshot

9

Unfired 22 Bullet

1

Unfired 32 Shell

1

Unfired 32 Bullett

2

Unfired 38 Shell

1

Percussion Cap

1

Modern Shotgun Cartr

idge

1

Grapeshot

1

Furnishings

Upholstery Tacks

3

Copper/Brass Nails

6

Drawer Pulls

2

Miscellaneous

Castmetal Clip

1

Castmetal Gasket

1

Bottle Stopper (Hutchison Closure;

1

Lorraine 1968)

Wine Bottle Seal

1

Pipes

Clay Pipes

Stems

4/64"

1

5/64"

23

6/64"

18

7/64"

11

Bowls

Unidentified

14

Oswald (1951) Type

25

4

Coins

1888 Indian Head Penny

1

Stone

Chert

47

Honey-colored Flint

1

Worked Quartzite

1

59

Artifact Counts WGC 903

Household Equipment

Ceramics
Type

Number

Whitewares
Plain

Transfer-Print
Painted

109

2
7

Pearlware
Transfer Print
Shell Edged
Painted Black/White
Painted Polychrome
Annular
Splatterware
Plain

6
21
6
7
25
6
6

Yellow Wares

42

Red Wares
Black Glazed

1

Stonewares

Gray Salt-glazed
Brown Salt-glazed
Alkaline Glazed (Green)
Ginger Beer Bottle
Unidentified

5
3

5

12
3

Porcelain

1

Creamware

1

Aboriginal Ceramics

94

Total

342

Glassware
Type

Number

Dark Green/Black Glass

Clear Bottle

Light Green

Windowpane

Light Blue (Modern)

Brown

Tableware (from a decanter)

87
180

25

59

1

111

13

60

Miscellaneous Household Utensils

Spoons

Thimble

Bucket Handle Brace

5-linked Chain

3

1
1
1

Construction Materials

Nails

Spikes

Screws

Bolt

Door Hinges

Locks

Shutter Pintle

Iron Fragments

3279

2

2

1

6

1

1
269

Clothing
Buttons
Number

Measurement

Type

Porcelain
30

10mm, 8mm, 6
12mm, 17mm,

mm,
13mm

South

Bone

5

2

16mm,18mm,
13mm, 15mm

15mm

South 19
South 20

Brass

2
2
3
1

Iron

3

28mm, 18mm
13mm, 15mm
12mm, 10mm
5 mm

16mm, 15mm,

12mm

Unclassified
South 32
South 7
Unclassified
(Cuff Button)

South 21

Pearl

2

4mm, 8mm

Unclassified

Glass
1

12mm

Unclassified

Miscellaneous
Type

Clothing Items

Number

Garment Attachments

Overall Hitch

Shoe Leather Fragments

Buckle

1
1
2
1

61

Personal items

Beads

Black Wire Wound

Blue Faceted
Female Locket

Hair Comb (2 Hard Rubber Teeth)
Broach Fragments
Male's Wedding Ring

1

2
1
2

2
1

Toys

Marbles

Porcelain Doll Legs

2
2

White Clay Pipes
Stems
4/64"
5/64"
6/64"
Bowls

Unidentified Fragments2
Oswald 1961 Type 21
Oswald 1961 Type 25

1

7
2

3
1

Furnishings

Glass Drawer Pull
Copper Nails

1
6

Firearms

Buckshot
Percussion Caps

3
3

Coins

1867 U.S. Nickel

1

Tools

Hoe, Round Eye

1

Miscellaneous

Graphite Pencil

Cast Metal Ornamental Appliques

Chert Flakes

River Pebbles

1

2
4
3

62

REPORT ON THE FAUNAL MATERIAL

EXCAVATED BY WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

FROM COLONEL'S ISLAND

Elizabeth J. Reitz**

Introduction

Faunal studies of bone from archaeological sites can provide
information on the subsistence activities of the human occupants
at the site. From such analysis it is possible to describe adapta-
tions to specific environments. In this study faunal collections
from seven sites on Colonel's Island excavated in 1977 by West
Georgia College were examined. Comparison of the Colonel's Is-
land faunal use with subsistence patterns identified from St.
Simons Island suggests that a pattern of marsh and tidal creek
resource use may have been widespread, even at historic sites.
Concentration was placed upon a limited range of species, most of
which could be caught at night using untended devices such as
traps and trot lines. Where terrestrial mammals were exploited,
these may indicate hunting as an adjunct to gardening rather than
a discrete activity.

Materials and Methods

Seven faunal collections were studied from the Colonel's Is-
land excavations. The collections come from two distinct time pe-
riods and from sites in slightly different ecological settings. All of
the sites are found in live oak hammocks, with pine-oak-palmetto
thickets nearby. Three of the aboriginal middens border salt
marsh areas, but currently lack direct access to a tidal creek
(WGC 906/926; WGC 907; WGC 918). One of the aboriginal
middens is bordered by Jointer Creek as well as by a salt marsh
(WGC 905). The fifth aboriginal midden is located in the interior
of the island (WGC 357). WGC 356 is associated with the Par-
land Plantation on the Brunswick River. The second historic site is
located several hundred feet away from the salt marsh biotope
and today does not have direct access to a tidal creek (WGC

** Direct Correspondence to: Department of Anthropology, Baldwin Hall, The Uni-
versity of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602.

63

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 26 (1987)

903).

The faunal materials were studied at the Florida State Mu-
seum, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. The archaeologi-
cal bone was identified using the Zooarchaeology Laboratory's
comparative skeletal collection. Specimens from each identified
category were counted and later weighed using a metric scale. The
Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) was determined using
paired elements (White 1953). At each site the materials recov-
ered from isolated, non-contiguous excavation units were analyzed
separately to determine MNI. Contiguous units were considered
as a single sample. The strata within each unit were lumped. This
method perhaps over-estimates the number of individuals present
when a species such as Cheloniidaeis represented by a single ele-
ment in each analytical sample.

An invertebrate collection was also identified at the Museum.
Since the collection was not gathered in a methodical manner
from the middens, no analysis was done. A list of the species iden-
tified is included in the appendix.

In order to determine the total biomass represented by the
identified bones an allometric equation was employed. There ap-
pears to be a relationship between skeletal weight and body
weight in vertebrate classes (Prange, et al., 1979). This relation-
ship may be expressed in the formula y = ax , or transformed to
log y = log a + b log x; where x = body weight; b = slope of a
log-log equation; log a the intercept of the log-log regression line,
fitted by the method of least squares; and y = skeletal weight.

Values for a and b were taken from several sources (see Ap-
pendix III). For mammals the values were a = 0.061 and b =
1.090 (Prange, et al. 1979). Prange's value for birds were also
used with a = 0.065 and b = 1.071. A and b values for
Emydidae were derived by Arlene Fradkin using data from the
Florida State Museum's Zooarchaeological Laboratory. For the
Emydidae a = 0.1278 and b = 1.1081. Values for fish in general,
as well as for Ariidae and Sciaenidae, have been derived by Sylvia
Scudder using data from the Zooarchaeology Laboratory. Fish,
including sharks and rays, were calculated with a = 0.043 and b
= 0.9842. When calculating for Ariidae a = 0.1274 and b =
0.825. The Sciaenidae values are a = 0.0326 and b = 1.0006.
The y value in all cases was the recovered bone weight in grams.
When the log x value was determined, it was converted to the
antilog. As such it represented total biomass for the skeletal mass

64

recovered.

Biomass for reptiles other than Emydidae was obtained from
the literature, except for the snake. Identification of the snake ver-
tebra to Colubridae is too general for this treatment so no biomass
estimate was attempted. E.A. Mcllhenny reports weights for ten
6-year old alligators (1935). An average of these weights, 23590
gms, was used. A biomass of 135 gms was estimated for each mud
turtle (John Iverson, personal communication). Most of the sea
turtles are probably loggerheads, these being the most common of
the sea turtles found on the Georgia coast (Johnson, et al. 1974).
Loggerheads weigh between 77-159 kilograms (Conant 1975)
with a mean biomass of 118 kilos per individual. Where more
than one individual was identified, the biomass was multiplied by
the number of individuals.

Ideally the total biomass should be further refined into
pounds of edible meat. To do so, however, first requires an evalua-
tion of the use to which each species was put. For example, was
the otter identified from WGC 903 consumed, or only butchered
for its fur? What portions of the deer were consumed? There is
not enough evidence upon which to base such interpretations for
Colonel's Island. As a consequence the unadjusted biomass figure
is used to calculate the percentage weight contribution for each
taxon. These live weight figures estimate the maximum amount of
biomass which the elements represent for each site.

The mammalian materials from the two historic sites were
analyzed for skeletal completeness, testing the hypothesis that the
two occupations could be slave refuse. Slaves presumably received
the bulk of their meat from rations. Species used as supplemental
rations would not be present in the slave cabin as complete skele-
tons, but as partial, fragmentary ones, possibly even allowing the
identification of butchering units such as hams or shoulders.
When itemization of identified elements did not prove conclusive,
David H. Thomas' formula for Corrected Specimens per Individ-
ual (CSI) (1971) was used. Species with a high CSI and a low B
value are relatively complete, and species with a low CSI and a
high B value have been subjected to some form of post-mortem
disruption. Since eight of the cow fragments from WGC 903 are
probably from the same tibia, the specimen number was reduced
to three for this test. Obviously the recovery screen size affects
these results. The hispid cotton rat, interpreted here as an intru-
sive species, has a B value of 3.76 at both sites, suggesting post-
65

mortem dispersal, i.e. human use. This is probably a direct reflec-
tion of recovery technique.

Results

The results of the identification for all seven sites are tabu-
lated in the appendix. The sites are listed in numerical order. The
appendix also contains a summary of the sites, contrasting the his-
toric with the prehistoric sites, and also provides common names
for the taxa identified.

The species identified from Colonel's Island represent five dif-
ferent categories. The first category, found represented only at the
two historic sites, is occupied by European domesticates, and the
dog. The cattle and chickens presumably represent fully domestic
animals. Pigs were clearly food items, but not necessarily domestic
ones. They could represent feral individuals. The single dog's
tooth recovered is interpreted as a non-economic inclusion rather
than dietary refuse.

Wild game includes both widely dispersed mammals and
aquatic or strictly marsh species. Deer, opossum, raccoons, and
feral pigs are found in marshes, live oak hammocks, and in gar-
dens (Johnson, et. al. 1974). Neither bobcat nor skunk are found
on the coastal islands today, but presumably would have ranged
widely over the island also. Otter are exclusively aquatic and are
common in the brackish waters (Johnson, et. al. 1974). Rabbit
and the common muskrat were probably taken from the marsh
area. The identification of the muskrat (from a lower first molar)
is a southeastern extension of this species' range into the coastal
region. In Louisiana the common muskrat is found in the marsh
environment (Lowery 1974:272). All of the above species have
nocturnal habits except for the otter. They could be captured us-
ing untended traps. Only the deer would require weaponry.

One of the wild mammals is not thought to represent an eco-
nomic element. The hispid cotton rat is a common inhabitant of
the coastal islands, living in thickets, grassy ditches, and pine for-
ests underbrush (Golley 1962). Since none of the four elements
identified are marked by human activity, they are interpreted as
natural inclusions rather than economic fauna. The small sample
size can be attributed to the recovery technique.

Non-domestic birds are a third, underrepresented, category.
Both the Ardeidae and Strigiformes are juveniles. They, as well as

66

the song birds, could be natural inclusions. The single duck proba-
bly does represent a food item. Such migratory water fowl seldom
are found except on streams and open water ways (Johnson, et. al.
1974) and the bird's presence on land probably is the result of
human activity.

All of the reptiles are common brackish water residents, ex-
cept the yellow-bellied turtle and possibly the snake (Conant
1975). Since the snake vertebra could not be identified to species
it is not possible to discuss its habitat. It is not included as a food
item. Chrysemys scripta sometimes is found along the coast
(Johnson, et. al. 1974). For this reason alone the specimens are
tentatively identified as scripta. The diamondback terrapin and
mud turtles are common inhabitants of brackish streams, usually
captured by untended basket traps. The sea turtles may represent
trips to the Jekyll Island nesting beaches (Caldwell, et. al. 1959).
However the loggerhead is known to come far inland seeking
crabs in the brackish streams (Carr, personal communication) and
could have been captured in the tidal creeks around the island.

The fifth category of species identified includes the sharks,
rays, and bony fish. All species identified from the sites are found
in the vicinity of the island, including the gar and white catfish.
These two are freshwater species, but they are occasionally found
in brackish water (Johnson, et. al. 1974). Most of the species be-
come gregarious surface feeders at night. Such species include
gar, ladyfish, sea catfishes, and drum (McLane 1955). The sea
catfishes feed on the bottom during the day. Spots and atlantic
croaker usually occupy deep open water, but at night move in to
the shore vegetation to feed (McLane 1955). Mullet normally
school on the surface of large open waterways, and are not com-
monly caught except in daytime and seldom in the small streams
(McLane 1955). Flounder are carnivorous bottom feeders. Mullet
and sturgeon are commonly caught with nets (Johnson, et. al.
1974). The other species could be taken with hooks and lines, ei-
ther hand held or as set lines.

When the faunal materials were examined for evidence of
seasonality, the pattern is unclear. Except for the muskrat, skunk,
otter, and bobcat, all of the economic species contained at least
one unfused element. The two juvenile birds indicate a warm
month occupation, but they have been interpreted as accidental
inclusions. All of the reptiles are year-round residents except the
sea turtles. These frequent the Georgia coast only during the

67

warm months (Caldwell, et. al. 1959). Most of the fish can be
found in the area throughout the year also, except for the Ariidae.
The sea catfishes are commonly found in the in-shore environment
between March and November (Dahlbert 1975). In other words,
those sites from which sea catfish and sea turtles were recovered
represent summer occupations, but may have been inhabited at
other times as well.

Analysis of skeletal completeness from the two historic sites
suggests that most of the major species were locally butchered and
subjected to only moderate disruption. Only the cow from WGC
903 demonstrates a dispersal pattern to be expected of rationed
meat. In this case it appears that the cow is present in the diet as
an imported cut of meat, perhaps a hind quarter of some sort. The
degree of skeletal completeness for the wild species at WGC 903
indicates that hunting was a common activity with the entire car-
cass returned to the site except in the case of otters and bobcat,
which were highly dispersed. WGC 356 relied more heavily upon
locally raised domestic species, with some hunting of species only
a short distance from the site.

Discussion of Significance

Two factors mitigate against drawing major conclusions from
these collections. The first of these is the small size of the collec-
tions and the representativeness of the sample. The second reser-
vation is that the historic sites may have been occupied by slaves,
runaways, or free men at any time before, during, or after the
Civil War. The status of the residents would influence the eco-
nomic activity at the sites.

The prehistoric sites can be summarized as representing a
marsh oriented subsistence strategy where raccoon, deer, and pos-
sibly muskrat were the only mammals contributing to the diet. All
other food species came from the tidal creeks, with emphasis upon
night feeding, schooling fish. The evidence suggest that trapping
and hook and line fishing were used.

These sites may be compared with the sites excavated by
Rochelle Marrinan at Cannon's Point on nearby St. Simon's Is-
land (1975). Studying the fauna from several Cannon's Point
sites, Marrinan concluded that the tidal creek biotope was more
heavily exploited than either the marsh or forest zones. This con-
clusion was drawn from a sample that lacks deer. Since the Colo-

68

nel's Island sites do contain deer, more emphasis was placed upon
terrestrial species. Since deer are found in the marsh, exploitation
of deer does not indicate that the Colonel's Island aboriginals
were more land than aquatic oriented. The deer could have been
hunted in conjunction with trips to the tidal creeks via the marsh.

WGC 903 is difficult to interpret without knowing if the oc-
cupants were slaves. As mentioned earlier the method by which
MNI was calculated may be misleading, especially at a single,
short-term occupation site. If the entire site is considered as a sin-
gle unit only 29 individuals are present. Of these only three spe-
cies are prominent: opossum at 6.9%; pig at 10.3%; and raccoon at
17.2%. All other species constitute 3.4% of the fauna, being repre-
sented by a single individual each. Perhaps the site is a temporary
hunting camp or refuge occupied between June and October.

A more likely explanation can be offered using the model of
garden patch hunting suggested by Olga Linares (1976). Linares
observed that many wild species commonly found at sites where
gardening was practiced are attracted to the fields as scavengers.
Among these species opossum, rabbit, raccoon, feral pigs, and
deer are prominent. These species could be killed by farmers visit-
ing their fields. Hunting as a special activity may not have been
practiced. The remains at WGC 903 suggest that the human oc-
cupants were subsistence farmers who captured game when these
were found raiding the gardens, who fished at night or used trot
lines, and who may also have set traps for some animals. The cow
could have been slaughtered elsewhere, as the otter and bobcat
surely were.

WGC 356 possibly represents a similar adaptation, with the
addition of livestock raising. Fish could have been caught using
set lines in the river, and some wild game may have been hunted
in addition to those captured as an adjunct to gardening.

At both of the historic sites the faunal inventory suggests that
the occupants may have been engaged elsewhere during the day.
The emphasis on species which could be caught either by un-
tended devices or with a minimum of effort suggests that these
were exploited in spare time, probably at night.

The only study of faunal remains from a similar economic
stratum is provided by John S. Otto (1975) who analyzed a slave
cabin sample from Couper Plantation on nearby St. Simons Is-
land. He found that the slave diet was dominated by domestic
foods. Otto suggests that the slaves had little time for hunting and

69

fishing due to their work on the plantation. Although most of the
small mammals found at Colonel's Island were also identified at
Couper's Plantation, the use of wild foods such as deer and sea
turtle indicates more exploitation of wild foods at Colonel's Island.
Possibly this difference can be explained by suggesting that the
Parland Plantation 1) supplied deer and sea turtle along with do-
mestic rations; 2) allowed the slaves sufficient time to hunt and
fish; or 3) allotted garden patches and weaponry to their slaves.

The absence of mullet at Colonel's Island is a further point of
difference between the two sites. Mullet comprised 10% of the
faunal sample at the slave cabin on Couper's Plantation, yet are
absent from Colonel's Island. Mullet are an ideal fish for mass
capture techniques since they are found in the day time in large
schools near the surface (McLane 1955). Their absence at Colo-
nel's Island could be significant. If Otto's findings can be genera-
lized as a model of slave subsistence it seems likely that neither
WGC 356 or WGC 903 represents slave economies.

Considering the two studies from St. Simons Island and the
seven sites from Colonel's Island together, one additional point of
interest is indicated. There appears to be relative specialization
upon a rather narrow range of fauna at all the sites. The faunal
inventories are remarkably similar regardless of the status of the
occupants, or the time of occupation. When the reported variety
of species from the estuarine environment is taken into account,
this limited and consistent range of species warrents further inves-
tigation. One also wonders if there are any deer on St. Simons
Island.

Summary

Although the conclusions which can be drawn from the Colo-
nel's Island faunal study are tentative, when Colonel's Island is
compared with the faunal studies from neighboring St. Simons Is-
land it appears that a regular subsistence pattern is operative in
the area regardless of temporal or status differences. The exploita-
tion of marsh mammals and such tidal creek species as sea catfish
and drum are common elements of all the sites, modified in the
historic sites only by the addition to the faunal inventory of do-
mestic animals. As more work is done along the Georgia coast it
will be possible to see if this pattern is maintained on other is-
lands. It will be of particular interest to explore slave diet more

70

extensively. Using Otto's model as a guide neither of the Colonel's
Island historic collections appear to be slave refuse. Further work
in this area at locations known positively as slave occupations is
needed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Caldwell, D.K., F.H. Berry, A. Car, R.A. Ragotzkie

1959 Multiple and Group Nesting by the Atlantic Loggerhead Turtle. Bulletin of
the Florida State Museum, Biological Science 4:10.
Carr, Archie F.

1978 Graduate Research Professor, Department of Zoology, University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida. Personal Communication.
Conant, Roger

1975 A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North
America. Houghton-Mifflin, Boston.
Dahlberg, Michael E.

1975 Guide to Coastal Fishes of Georgia and Nearby States. University of Georgia
Press, Athens.

Golley, Frank B.

1962 Mammals of Georgia. University of Georgia Press, Athens.
Iverson, John.

1978 Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Personal
Communication.

Johnson, A.S., H.O. Hillestad, S.F. Shaanholtzer, G.F. Shauholtzer

1974 An Ecological Survey of the Coastal Region of Georgia. National Park Service
Scientific Monograph 3.
Linares, Olga

1976 Garden Hunting in the American Tropics. Human Ecology 4 (4):33 1-349.
Lowery, Georgia H.

1974 The Mammals of Louisiana and Its Adjacent Waters. Louisiana State Univer-
sity Press, Baton Rouge.

Mcllhenny, E.A.

1935 The Alligator's Life History. Christopher Publishing House, Boston.
McLane, William McNair

1955 The Fishes of the St. Johns River System. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of
Florida, Gainesville.
Marrinan, Rochelle A.

1975 Ceramics, Molluscs, and Sedentism: A Late Archaic Period on the Georgia
Coast. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Florida, Gainesville.

Otto, John Solomon

1975 Status Differences and the Archaeological Record - a Comparison of Planter,

Overseer, and Slave Sites from Cannon's Point Plantation (1794-1861), St.

Simons Island, Georgia. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Florida, Gainesville.
Prange, H.D., J. A. Anderson, and Hermann Rahn

1979 Scaling of Skeletal Mass to Body Mass in Birds and Mammals. American Nat-
uralist 113(1):103-122.

Thomas, David H.

1971 On Distinguishing Natural from Cultural Bone in Archaeological Sites. Ameri-
can Antiquity 36 (3):366-371.
White, Theodore

1953 A Method of Calculating the Dietary Percentage of Various Food Animals
Utilized by Aboriginal Peoples. American Antiquity 18 (4):396-398.

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Comparing Specimens from Historic and Prehistoric Sites
1977.

Colonel's Island

Species

Common Names

Historic
MNI

Prehistoric
| MNI

Unid. Mammal

Mammal

1393

-

133

-

Didelphis virginiana

Oppossum

40

7

-

-

Sylvilagus sp.

Rabbit

10

5

-

-

Sylvilagus palustris

Marsh Rabbit

1

1

-

-

Rodent

Rodents

-

-

1

-

*Sigmodon hispidus

Cotton Rat

4

4

-

-

Ondatra zibethicstat

Common Muskrat

-

-

1

1

Carnivora

Carnivores

1

-

-

-

*Danis familiaris

Dog

1

1

-

-

Procyon lotor

Raccoon

32

12

6

4

Mephitis mephitis

Striped Skunk

1

1

-

-

Lutra canadensis

River Otter

1

1

-

-

Felix rufus

Bobcat

1

1

-

-

Artiodactyl

4

-

-

-

Sus scrofa

Swine

84

20

-

-

cf. Odocoileus virginianus

Deer

2

-

2

-

Odocoileus virginianus

White-tailed Deer

26

11

14

7

cf. Bos taurus

Cow

1

-

-

-

Bos taurus

Cow

101

12

-

-

Alligator mississippiensis

Alligator

1

1

-

-

Unid. Turtle

Turtles

30

-

192

-

cf. Kinosternon

subrubrum

Mud Turtle

6

1

-

-

Kinosternon subrubrum

Mud Turtle

-

-

37

2

cf. Emydidae

-

-

1

-

Emydidae

Box and Water Turtles

28

1

387

-

Malaclemys terrapin

Diamondback

75

5

86

9

cf. Chrysemys cf. scripta

Cooter

-

-

1

1

Chrysemys cf. scripta

Cooter

-

-

1

1

Cheloniidae

Sea Turtles

42

3

-

-

Caretta caretta

Loggerhead

6

1

-

-

Lepidochelys kempi

Ridley

1

1

-

-

*Colubridae

Snake

2

1

-

-

Unid. Birds

Bird

20

-

12

1

*Ardeidae

Herons and Bitterns

1

1

-

-

Anas sp.

Blue-winged Teal

1

1

-

-

Gallus gallus

Chicken

6

4

-

-

*Strigiformes

Owls

5

1

-

-

*Passeriformes

Songbirds

2

2

-

-

Caracharhinus sp.

Requiem Shark

2

1

-

-

Sphyrna tiburo

Bonnethead

-

-

1

1

Dasyatis sp.

Stingray

-

-

4

1

Unid. Osteichthyes

Bony Fish

32

-

523

2

Acipenser sp.

Sturgeon

-

-

2

1

Lepisosteus cf. osseus

Gar

1

1

1

1

Elops saurus

Ladyfish

1

1

-

-

Icatalurus cf. catus

White catfish

1

1

-

-

Ariidae

Sea Catfishes

4

-

8

-

77

continued

Historic

Prehistoric

Species

Common Names

#

MNI

#

MNI

Arius felis

Sea Catfish

8

4

2^

3

Bagre marinus

Gafftopsail catfish

3

1

14

3

Perciformes

1

-

1

1

Archosargus probato

cephalus

Sheepshead

5

4

2

1

Cynoscion sp.

Sea Trout

-

-

2

1

Leiostmus xanthurus

Spot

-

-

1

1

cf. Micropogonias

undulatus

Atlantic croa

ker

-

-

301

-

Micropogonias undulatus

Atlantic croa

ker

-

-

1 50

23

Pogonias cromis

Black Drum

12

3

-

-

Scianops ocellatus

Red Drum

1

1

-

-

Mugil sp.

Mullet

-

-

2

1

Prionotus sp.

Sea Robin

-

-

51

1

Paralichthys sp.

Flounder

-

-

2

1

Unid. Bone

237

-

348

-

TOTALS

2237

116

2316

68

*not thought to be a food item.

78

m

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c E -c = s a b $r - i- c a ii

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rn c^ e^> t-~ "i r^i

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x x rsi "n <n

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^c >e>o

o *s *=

80

THE CULTURAL OCCUPATION OF
COLONEL'S ISLAND, GEORGIA:
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Karl T. Steinen**

The archaeological investigation of Colonel's Island proved,
in many ways, to be quite disappointing. The prehistoric sites that
were tested all produced ample evidence of having been disturbed
by farming or industrial activity during the 19th and 20th centu-
ries. A brief examination of the artifact tables bears this out. The
historic excavations, while more fruitful, were also disappointing.
The abortive 1880's development of the northern end of the island
destroyed most of the Parland Plantation. The historic sites on the
south side of the island did, however, disclose important informa-
tion concerning the post-Civil War freedman occupation of the
Georgia coast.

This volume does not present the results of landmark excava-
tions. The disturbed nature of the sites and limited excavation
techniques prevent them from being such. However, the data that
are presented and the conclusions reached from them should not
be discounted.

They should be viewed as preliminary models to be tested
through more substantial excavation programs in similar environ-
mental and histoical settings.

An integration of the archaeological, zooarchaeological and
ethnobotanical analysis presented in this volume allows a picture
of the lifeways on the island, and subsequently, the marsh to be
developed. One of the more interesting aspects of coastal life that
was defined from the excavations was the apparent uniformity of
the economic resources of the marsh through time. Both the
zooarchaeological and ethnobotanical reports, prepared indepen-
dently, indicate that the economic resources that were exploited
were primarily from the marsh and changed little though time.

The prehistoric sites that were tested showed remarkable sim-
ilarity of structure and content. Although the cultural component
of each varied, the overall composition of the sites was the same.

** Direct correspondence to: Martha Munro Hail, West Georgia College, Carroll-
ton,Georgia 30118.

81

West Georgia College, Studies in the Social Sciences 26 (1987)

Generally speaking, each of the sites, with the exception of WGC
357, was oriented specifically toward the marsh/island ecotone.
While the sites were observed to spread inland for some distance,
the bulk of the cultural deposits were found on the marsh/island
ecotone. The reliance placed on exploitation of the marsh habitat
for hunting and fishing as well as oyster gathering seems to be the
reason for this pattern of site placement.

The midden content of both cultural and non-cultural materi-
als was consistent. The bulk of the middens consists of oyster shell
with a minimal admixture of dark sand. The shell weights made
for each test unit were intended to be used to detect horizontal
stratification within the site. It was hypothesized that differential
intensity of occupation of the sites would be reflected in greater or
lesser concentration of shell in different areas. While the limited
amount of digging conducted on each site prevented the testing of
this hypothesis, the generated weight data combined with the
knowledge of the aerial extent of the different sites suggests that
there was a fairly even utilization of the different sites.

The two prehistoric sites which do not fit into this generaliza-
tion are WGC 907 and WGC 357. WGC 907 is difficult to char-
acterize. Due to the extensive disturbance of the site and the lim-
ited number of artifacts recovered from the formal tests, surface
inspection and the auger holes, little can be said. This site is
larger than the others, and the depth of the midden is the stan-
dard six inches, but the concentration of cultural materials is
much lower. More extensive testing of this site is needed to deter-
mine its exact place within the cultural and historic developmental
scheme for the island.

WGC 357, the Railroad site, presents a different problem al-
together. Its inland placement and more extensive midden sug-
gests that it may have been a permanently inhabited site. The
sherds with the filfot cross stamp that were recovered give this site
a very late prehistoric to historic date. It is entirely possible that
the people who lived there were attempting to remain unobserved.
All the other aboriginal sites were placed in close proximity to the
marsh or salt creeks where they are easily observable from off the
island. The inland location of WGC 357 masks it from observa-
tion from any portion of the shore. Indeed, assuming that there
was a heavy growth of oak on the island before it was modified by
the historic occupation, the village would be difficult to see from
any distance on the island itself. Intentional placement of a village

82

area in an unobservable area could suggest that they were a fugi-
tive population. An alternate explanation is that the site was situ-
ated here to allow for efficient horticulture to be conducted. A
similar shift in settlement pattern (from compact shell middens to
thin/sand middens) has been documented by Larson for the Guale
at the time of European contact (Larson 1978; 1980).

In recent years archaeologists have found that soil types are
useful factors in the determination of the variables of site place-
ment. The excavated prehistoric sites are located on four different
soil types. WGC 357 is located on Lakeland Sand, a type consid-
ered relatively unsuitable for agriculture. WGC 907, 905 and
906/926 are situated on Chipley Sand, while WGC 913 is located
on Rutledge Sand. WGC 918 is located on Leon Sand.

I believe that all of the indications present support a conclu-
sion that the prehistoric sites on Colonel's Island were occupied on
a limited basis. Their small size, apparent lack of features, small
range of resources present and lack of artifacts all point to this
conclusion.

The historic excavations proved to be disappointing. The fu-
tile attempt to develop the island during the 1880's disturbed al-
most completely the main area of the Parland Plantation (WGC
356). Our efforts to determine aspects of social stratification were
thwarted by the disturbance of the plantation structures and re-
fuse area. However, the faunal analysis of this site suggests that
there may have been no significant change in subsistence patterns
from the prehistoric period. WGC 903, the post-Civil War freed-
man settlement, exhibited the same subsistence pattern as the
Parland Plantation site.

In summary, it can be stated that the inhabitants of Colonel's
Island, both historically and prehistorically, practiced a subsis-
tence economy that was closely tied to the marsh and tidal creeks.
Not unlike the occupants of the barrier islands, these people rec-
ognized and exploited the rich resources that are present in the
Georgia coastal marsh ecosystem. The richness of this environ-
ment with its great variety of exploitable game and fishes pre-
cluded the need to rely heavily upon imported foods. The addition
of domesticated foods in the form of swine and cattle further
added to the productivity of the marsh area.

The question remains as to why the island was inhabited only
intermittently before European occupation. The basic pattern of
small sites seems to be prevalent in the areas of the coast south of

83

St. Simons Island. Jekyll Island, Cumberland Island and the
mainland and other marsh islands south of St. Simon's do not pos-
sess sites as large or as complex as those found on, for instance,
St. Catherines and Sapelo Island. This has led to the speculation
that the area below St. Simons and above the St. Mary's River
served as a buffer zone between the distinctly different cultures of
the Georgia coast and the St. Johns region of Florida (Larson
1958).

Larson (1958:12-13) has discussed the concept of a cultural
buffer in this area to some extent. He has characterized the two
different areas as having possessed, during the historic period, two
distinct cultures. Larson writes:

In the proto-historic and historic periods, the Guale
Indians (of Georgia) were located on the coast in Mcin-
tosh and Liberty Counties, some twenty-five miles north
of Camden County. To the south of Camden County on
the Northern St. Johns area of Florida were a Timucuan
group. . .In general, the Guale were culturally related to
central Georgia and the close linguistic kin, the Creeks
(Larson Msa), while the eastern Timucuan relationships
lay primarily in Florida (Goggin 1952:68-70).

Larson continues his article with a fairly detailed discussion
of the ceramic and ethnohistorical evidence for this area being a
buffer zone between these two distinct culture areas. This discus-
sion cannot be furthered by the data generated from Colonel's
Island.

The dynamics of culture contact would dictate that if two dif-
ferent cultures exploiting the same environment and niche came
into contact, there would be competition for the natural resources.
Prehistorically, the patterns of population replacement caused by
this form of competition have been documented for many areas
(Prufer 1970; Sears 1968). If, however, two geographically adja-
cent cultures who exploited the same or similar environments did
not come into contact, the competition for the resources would not
develop. The development of a buffer zone, an area not intensely
exploited by either group, to reduce or eliminate the competition
between populations, would be a logical cultural adjustment of the
problem.

The aboriginal patterns shown on the island, when compared
to the barrier islands, suggest that the marsh corridor was only a

84

single segment in a complex pattern of exploitation of the natural
environment. Cleland (1976) has developed th Diffuse Model for
this general pattern of environmental adaptation. This pattern of
adaptation places a reliance on multiple resources in an area and
not on a single resource (Focal Model). The heavy reliance on the
marsh/tidal creek environments and the indications of non-perma-
nent habitations are evidence to support the application of the
Diffuse Model to the prehistoric component of Colonel's Island. I
suggest that the island, and correspondingly the marsh corridor,
were exploited for the available oysters, marsh fauna and salt
creek fish. No long term occupation was practiced, however, the
areas of the island were re-utilized periodically over long periods
of time.

The historic occupation of the island is known primarily
through documents. The Parland Plantation, while productive,
never reached the economic or social heights of the nearby barrier
island plantations on St. Simons, or of the mainland rice planta-
tions. The exact reasons for this inability to match the economic
output of the better known plantations are not known at this time.
The factors involved in productivity transcend the normally mea-
surable variables of soil productivity, world market and size of
workforce. The individualistic variables of incentive, ability of
managers and overall structure of the supervisory mechanisms,
items that cannot be measured by archaeological methods, are all
important in the understanding of economic success when dealing
with agricultural production for use in a world market.

In conclusion, it must be stressed that the results of these
excavations can be used only as the basis for more extensive
archaeological research in the marsh corridor. The concept of a
Diffuse Model of settlement pattern and restricted availability of
land coupled with the cultural variable of a buffer zone between
the St. John's region of Florida and the Georgia Coast need to be
tested through the development of an extensive survey and the ex-
cavation program. The results of this program coupled with the
preliminary data generated by the Colonel's Island excavations
will serve to add to our knowledge of the prehistoric and historic
lifeways of the Georgia Coast.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bullen, Ripley P. and Bruce Green

1970 Stratigraphic Tests at Stallings Island, Georgia. Florida Anthropologist 23

85

(1).

Caldwell, Joseph

1971 Chronology of the Georgia Coast. Southeastern Archaeological Conference
Bulletin 13:88-92.
Caldwell, Joseph and Catherine McCann

1971 Irene Mound Site, Chatham County, Georgia. University of Georgia Press,
Athens.
Clafiin, William H.

1931 The Stallings Island Mound, Columbia County, Georgia. Papers of the
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 14,
No. 1, Cambridge.
Cleland, Charles E.

1976 The Focal-Diffuse Model: An Evolutionary Perspectiveln the Prehistoric Cul-
tural Adaptation of the Eastern United States. Midcontenintal Journal of Ar-
chaeology 1 (1).

Cook, Fred

1977 The Lower Georgia Coast as a Cultural Sub- Region. Early Georgia 5(1 & 2)
15-36.

DePratter, Chester

1977 Environmental Changes on the Georgia Coast During the Prehistoric Period.
Early Georgia 5 (1 & 2): 1-14.

Fairbanks, Charles H.

1942 The Taxanomic Position of Stallings Island, Georgia American Antiquity 1
(3): 223-231.
Larson, Lewis H.

1958 Cultural Relationships Between the Northern St. Johns Area and the Georgia
Coast. Florida Anthropologist XI (l):ll-22.

1978 Historic Guale Indians of the Georgia Coast andthe Impact of the Spanish
Mission Effort. In Tacachale: Essays on the Indians of Florida and Southeast-
ern Georgia During the Historic Period edited by J.T. Milanich and S. Proc-
tor, pp. 120-140. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville.

1980 Aboriginal Subsistence Technology of the Southeastern Coastal Plain During
the Late Prehistoric Period. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville.
Martinez, Carlos

1975 Cultural Sequence on the Central Georgia Coast: 1000 BC-1650 AD. M.A.
Thesis, University of Florida.
Milanich, Jerald T.

1973 The Southeastern Deptford Culture: A Preliminary Definition. Bureau of His-
toric Sites and Properties Bulletin No. J., Tallahassee, Florida.
Prufer, Olaf

1970 Blain Village and the Fort Ancient Tradition in Ohio. The Kent State Univer-
sity Press.
Sears, William H.

1961 The Study of Social and Religious Systems in North American Archaeology.

Current Anthropology 2(3): 223-246.
1968 The State and Settlement Patterns in the New World in K.C.Chang, ed. Set-
tlement Archaeology. National Press Books, Palo Alto.

86

/77U

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE
STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES,

+ ZP It 3 7 ^0 ?&

IA'S
EAST-ASIAN
CONNECTION:

) THFi

FIRST
CENTURY

GEORGIA'S EAST ASIAN
CONNECTION: INTO THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN
Volume Editor

CONTENTS

Page
:oreword by Francis P. Conner, West Georgia College;
Series Editor, Studies in the Social Sciences v

deface by Jonathan Goldstein, West Georgia College;

zditor of Issue on "Georgia's East Asian Connection:

nto the Twenty-first Century" , viii

The Historical Experience: East Asians in Georgia

A. Historical Documents Relating to Asian-Americans
and to East Asia in the National Archives Southeast
Region, by Gayle Peters, National Archives
Southeast Region; Jonathan Goldstein, West Georgia
College; and Merlin Kirk, West Georgia College 2

B. History of the Chinese in Savannah, Georgia,
by George B. Pruden, Jr., Armstrong State College 17

C. The Augusta, Georgia, Chinese: 1865-1980, by
Catherine Brown, and Thomas Ganschow,
University of Georgia 35

D. The Expulsion of Loo Chang from Waynesboro:
A Case Study of Sinophobia in Georgia in 1883,
by Bess Beatty, Oregon State University 57

The Historical Experience: Georgians in East Asia
A. John Elliot Ward: A Georgia Elitist in the Celestial
Empire, 1858-60, by William M. Gabard, Valdosta
State College, Emeritus 72

Page

B. William L. Scruggs: A Georgian as United States
Consul in China, 1879-81 , by Dale Peeples,

Valdosta State College 88

C. Feminism and Methodist Missionary Activity in China:
The Experience of Atlanta's Laura Haygood,

1 884-1 900, by Linda Madson Papageorge, Kennesaw
College 100

D. A Georgia Evangelist in the Celestial Empire: Cicero
Washington Pruitt (1857-1946) and the Southern
Baptist Mission in Shantung, by Marjorie King,
Hahnemann University 112

III. Contemporary Georgia-East Asian Relations and the Future

A. Georgia, Atlanta, and the East Asian World: An
Economist's View of Interactions Since World War II,
by Ernest W. Ogram, Institute of International

Business, Georgia State University 130

B. The Georgia-Japan Relationship: Into the Twenty-first
Century, by Day Lancaster, State of Georgia
Department of Industry and Trade 140

C. The Georgia-Japan Relationship: A Comparison of
Japanese Investment in Massachusetts and in Georgia,

by George M. Lancaster, The Portman Companies 150

D. The Georgia-Republic of Korea (ROK) Connection:
Into the Twenty-first Century, by Gerdeen Dyer, The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 159

IV. Profiles of Civic Organizations Involved with Georgia-East
Asian Relations
A. Japan, Georgia, and the Japan-America Society of

Georgia (JASG): The Viewpoint of Its Executive
Director, by George Waldner, JASG and Wilkes

College 170

B. Enhancing Understanding of Japan Through an
Informal Coalition of Scholars, Educators and Others:
The Japan Education Network in Georgia (JENGA), by
Donald O. Schneider, University of Georgia 178

Page

C. The Asian Studies Consortium of Georgia (ASCOG),
by Don Chang Lee, ASCOG and Georgia
Southwestern College 184

D. The Atlanta Basha of the China-Burma-India Veterans
Association (CBIVA), by Elmer E. Felecki, CBIVA 189

E. Georgia's Place in the History of Friends of Free China
(FOFC), by Jack E. Buttram, FOFC 195

F. History of the United States-China People's Friendship
Association (USCPFA) of Atlanta, by Edward S. Krebs,
USCPFA, and author, Liu Ssu-Fu and Chinese
Anarchism, 1905-16 202

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE
STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Volume XXVIII January 1990

TITLES IN PRINT
$2.00 each:

Vol. VIII, 1969, Some Aspects of Black Culture.

Vol. XI, 1972, Georgia Diplomats and Nineteenth Century Trade
Expansion.

Vol. XIII, 1974, American Diplomatic History: Issues and Methods.

$3.00 each:

Vol. XIV, 1975, Political Morality, Responsiveness, and Reform in
America.

Vol. XV, 1976, The American Revolution: The Home Front.

Vol. XVI, 1 977, Essays on the Human Geography of the Southeastern
United States.

Vol. XVIII, 1979, The Southeastern United States: Essays on the
Cutural and Historical Landscape.

$4.00 each:

Vol. XIX, 1980, Sapelo Papers: Researchers in the History and
Prehistory of Sapelo Island, Georgia.

Vol. XX, 1981, Games Without Frontiers: Essays for a Protean
Sociology.

Vol. XXI, 1982, Supply-Side Economics: Pro and Con.

Copyright 1990, West Georgia College

Printed in U.S.A.
($1 .00 discount per copy with standing orders or orders of ten or more
to one address.)

COVER ILLUSTRATION : Cover by Prof. Lee-jan Jan of West Georgia
College.

Cost: $4525.00
500 copies
ISSN 0081-8682

iv

FOREWORD

Since the publication of Georgia's East Asian Connection 1733-
1983 (West Georgia College Studies in Social Sciences, Vol. XXII) in
1983, which detailed a number of ways in which Georgians were
involved with the countries and peoples of East Asia, both historically
and currently, those connections have increased and expanded. This
volume, also edited by Dr. Goldstein, updates and expands the
previous work.

Continued economic competition with Japan, the 1 988 Olympics in
Seoul, and especially recent events in China, reveal to us once again
that the world is much smaller than we imagine it to be. The increased
number of new citizens from Korea and from Southeast Asia, as well
as the presence of Japanese businesses in even our smallest commu-
nities, makes us aware of the need for learning more about these
people who are sometimes our partners, sometimes our competitors,
but always our neighbors on this planet. This volume attempts to help
us understand these global neighbors by focusing on historical events
in which individuals and groups from our different cultures have
interacted. Sometimes the immediate result was tragic, sometimes
inspiring, sometimes simply pragmatic.

The Chinese have a saying, "The only thing constant is change." If
we are to be prepared for the change occurring in our midst and in the
homelands of our East Asian neighbors, we must learn more about
them. It is hoped that this volume will help us to do that for the general
reader as well as for serious social scientists.

Francis P. Conner
Series Editor

Preface By Jonathan Goldstein,
West Georgia College;

Volume Editor of

Georgia's East Asian Connection
Into the Twenty-First Century

VII

//

Preface to the Issue,
Georgia's East Asian Connection:
Into the Twenty-first Century"

JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN

In 1983 Georgia celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniver-
sary not only of its founding, but also of its contact with East Asia.
With America's transpacific trade exceeding the dollar value of our
traditional transatlantic trade and with two hundred and fifty years of
Georgian-East Asian interaction behind us, the time seemed right to
raise the questions: What has been the nature of the historical ties
between Georgia and East Asia, and what are the prospects for
future ties?

In 1983, in an attempt to answer those questions, West Georgia
College Studies in the Social Sciences published Georgia's East
Asian Connection, 1733-1983. The principal changes in this 1990
issue, which addresses itself to those enduring questions, are the
addition of an article to the historical section and the updating and
expansion of the section on the contemporary experience with six
new articles. The 1983 issue, which sold out almost immediately, ex-
amined Georgia's East Asian relations on multiple levels:

1 . Direct people-to-people contacts as Georgians and East
Asians have travelled, migrated to, and in some cases settled
in each others' territories.

2. Newspaper and other media accounts that contributed to
Georgia's awareness of East Asian cultures.

3. Commerce between Georgia and East Asia.

4. Diplomatic relations between the United States and East
Asia in which Georgians played a part.

viii

The 1990 volume reexamines these levels of interaction and dis-
cusses new ones. One article focuses specifically on Georgia's
Koreans, now the largest Asian immigrant population in the state.
Two 1983 articles concerned civic organizations involved with Geor-
gia-East Asian ties. The 1990 volume includes revised and updated
profiles of those two organizations, the Japan-America Society of
Georgia and the United States-China People's Friendship Associa-
tion of Atlanta, plus new histories of the Japan Education Network in
Georgia, the Asian Studies Consortium of Georgia, and the Atlanta
basha of the China-Burma-India Veterans Association. The new
issue includes one more profile of a Georgian active in nineteenth
century China, Southern Baptist missionary Cicero Washington Pruitt.
Professor Marjorie King's 1990 biography of Pruitt provides a con-
trast with Professor Linda Papageorge's 1983 profile of Southern
Methodist Laura Haygood. Lastly, because of the increasing impor-
tance of Japanese investment in our state, an article by George M.
Lancaster of The Portman Companies compares Japanese invest-
ment in Massachusetts with that in Georgia. This article comple-
ments his brother Day's in the 1983 volume. Day's updated piece
gives an overall profile of both Japanese investment in Georgia and
Georgia investment in Japan.

Like its 1983 predecessor, the 1990 publication is a multi-discipli-
nary effort to describe and analyze Georgia's East Asian connec-
tions. Because of the varied nature of these ties, the volume editor
has enlisted a variety of experts to evaluate them. Contributors to the
1990 issue include six professors of East Asian history, one graduate
student in East Asian history, one geographer, one anthropologist,
one journalist, three professors of American history, an economist
who is also a professor of international business, a United States
Government archivist in the State of Georgia, a State of Georgia
international trade official, three citizen-officials of civic organizations
with Georgia-East Asia ties, and a Georgia businessman with exper-
tise in bureaus of international trade in two states.

These experts focus on three specific aspects of Georgia-East
Asia ties. Hence the three sections of this volume. Section one deals
with the historical experiences and difficulties faced by the Chinese,
the earliest East Asian immigrants to Georgia, in Savannah, Au-
gusta, and Waynesboro. Section two offers analyses of the experi-

IX

ence of Georgia pioneers in nineteenth and early twentieth century
China: an ex-Savannah mayor who served as the first United States
diplomatic representative to Beijing (Peking); a low-level career dip-
lomat from Atlanta who served as a United States consul in China; a
female educator from Atlanta who helped establish Southern Meth-
odist missionary programs in Shanghai; and a Barrettsville, Georgia,
native who served for decades as a Southern Baptist missionary in
Shantung province, North China. Section three leaps to the post-
World War II period. It concerns Georgia's recent ties not only with
China, but also with Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan.
Prospects for the future are examined in terms of people-to-people
contacts through individual travel and immigration, through activities
of immigration civic organizations, through East Asian investment in
Georgia and Georgian investment in East Asia; and through official
federal, state, and municipal government relationships.

The first article in section one is a bibliographical survey of docu-
ments in Atlanta's Federal Government records depository that might
shed light on Georgia's East Asian connection. The National Ar-
chives Southeast Region is the largest repository in Georgia of East
Asia-related records. A survey of its archival holdings has been made
through the joint efforts of its resident archivist, who is also a special-
ist on American history and international relations; a professor of
East Asian history; and a West Georgia College graduate student
interning at the Atlanta branch to assist in the survey of Asian-related
documents. The article suggests what types of records are available
for specific types of research on East Asia-related topics. Brief de-
scriptions are given of the Regional Archives' United States census
records; naturalization records and other federal court documents;
Customs Service passenger lists; Selective Service System docu-
ments; and State, War, and Navy Department papers. The histories
of the Savannah, Augusta, and Waynesboro Chinese in this volume
are examples of the type of demographic history of Asian-Americans
that can be written using United States census data and federal court
records along with other sources. The two articles on Georgia diplo-
mats are examples of what can be discovered using National Ar-
chives diplomatic documents.

Professor George B. Pruden is a specialist in East Asian history.
His article on Savannah establishes the origins of Georgia's East

^sian connection, tracing the interaction back to Oglethorpe and the
sarliest Georgians' awareness of China. Pruden asks how the expe-
'iences of Chinese immigrants in nineteenth-century Savannah
compared with previously established race relationships. Did the
Chinese assimilate or remain distinctive within a Chinatown? Why?
What was the role of the Christian Church in the Chinese commu-
nity? How were the Chinese accepted as citizens by the Caucasian
and black Savannahians? Pruden has used local newspaper ac-
:ounts, interviews, and city directories, along with federal census
data to reconstruct the history of the Savannah Chinese. He dis-
cusses their reasons for emigration, areas of settlement, education,
and economic mobility. His data is tabulated in an appendix.

Pruden then deals with the twentieth century, with vivid anecdotes,
and even a poem, to provide a picture of the Chinese settlement in
Savannah. He offers minibiographies of some typical and atypical
Savannah Chinese: Robert Chung Chan, the first Chinese to estab-
ish a family in Savannah; his poet-daughter Gerald (nee Geraldine)
Sieg; the entrepreneur T.S. Chu; and the scholar-politician K.C. Wu.
Mingling anecdotes with demographic data, Pruden presents a schol-
arly and lucid history of an American settlement, in the manner of
-ibrarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin in his classic history, Ameri-
cans: The National Experience.

Catherine Brown and Thomas Ganschow, like Pruden, also have
Jtilized census data, city directories, and media accounts to recon-
struct a profile of a Chinese settlement. Brown, drawing upon a
Dackground in geography, and Ganschow, in Chinese history, have
attempted to isolate historical and socio-economic development pat-
erns of Augusta Chinese. They are concerned with the questions:
Amy did the Chinese come to the South after the Civil War? Was it an
accidental or a planned migration? What was the response of South-
erners to Chinese, and vice versa? Were the patterns of discrimina-
:ion against blacks transferred to the Chinese? What were the in-
creases or decreases in the Chinese population? What were the
scholastic achievements and the shifts in residential and occupa-
ional patterns? To what degree were Chinese socially accepted? In
^articular, were they allowed to move into white neighborhoods?
How did patterns within Augusta's Chinese community compare with
patterns elsewhere in the nation? This data is tabulated in five ap-

XI

pendixes to the article. Like Pruden, Brown and Ganschow liven their
demographic data with anecdotal material such as the account of the
murder of Chinese grocer Yip Sing in Augusta in 1 896 and his Baptist
burial service in Augusta's "whites-only" cemetery.

Bess Beatty, an American historian with a strong background in
black and labor history, deals with the origins and significance of the
"Ku Kluxing," or forcible expulsion, of Loo Chang, Waynesboro's first
Chinese resident. Beatty attempts to place the Waynesboro experi-
ence within the broader context of early American sinophobia and
prejudice and compares her findings with those of Luther Spoehr,
Stuart Miller, Gunter Barth, Mary Coolidge, Carey McWilliams, and
other historians of sinophobia and prejudice. Beatty's interest is
largely in Loo Chang's legal status, and she has drawn on federal
and county court records, as well as census data, to conclude that an
"interchangeability of prejudice" may have gravitated in Georgia from
blacks to Chinese. She examines the economic threat Chinese
merchants may have posed to Caucasian businessmen in Georgia.
Beatty postulates that demonstrations of southern racism and sino-
phobia such as occurred in Waynesboro in 1883 may explain why so
few Chinese immigrants came south.

As Chinese began to settle in Georgia in the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury, Georgians began to visit, and occasionally settle, in East Asia.
In describing the careers of three nineteenth century Georgia pio-
neers in China, Professors William M. Gabard, Dale Peeples, Linda
Madson Papageorge, and Marjorie King evaluate the success of
these pioneers in terms of the background and goals of each individ-
ual and the broad context of American-East Asian relations in which
each of the individuals operated.

Gabard, a professor of East Asian history with a sub-specialty in
Georgia history, evaluates the career of Savannah Mayor John Elliott
Ward, the United States' diplomatic representative in China from
1 858 through 1 860. Ward held close ties with the Episcopal church in
Savannah, with the Episcopal bishop in Georgia, and indirectly with
that bishop's brother-in-law, the Episcopal bishop in China. Gabard
details religious, economic, and political influences of a Georgia
background on the conscience and conduct of this diplomat. Once in
China, Ward continued his associations with clerics, especially with
the Reverend S. Wells Williams, who served as interim United States

XII

charge d'affaires until Ward arrived, and with the Reverends W.A.P.
Martin and William Aitchinson, who served as interpreters for Ward's
legation. Beyond religious influences, Gabard discusses how the
international trade, travel, and naval contacts of Savannah familiar-
ized Ward with East Asia. Gabard examines how the decorum of
Southern gentlemanly conduct affected Ward's behavior in his offi-
cial duties in the alien environment of China.

Ward was an ex-mayor sent on a high-level pioneering mission by
President Buchanan in 1858. Professor Peeples, an American diplo-
matic historian, describes the career of a low-level Foreign Service
Officer, Atlantan William Scruggs. Scruggs served in China two
decades after Ward, at a time when official Sino-American relations
had evolved from an exploratory and experimental level to a more
routine level of contact. Scruggs apparently enjoyed little personal
satisfaction while working diligently to improve the consulates to
which he was assigned. He is sympathetically portrayed as a hard
working civil servant who endured physical illness, disappointment,
and homesicknesses during a two year consulship in Zhenjiang and
Guangzhou.

Professor Papageorge, a specialist in American history, focuses
on Atlanta's pioneer feminist missionary-educator Laura Haygood,
whom she sees as anything but a plodding bureaucrat. Papageorge
asks: What type of missionary work was open to Victorian women?
What kinds of women entered the field and why? What was the
nature of a missionary woman's spiritual consciousness? On what
terms did she participate with men in the movement? To what degree
did her participation affect the East Asian society she hoped to
convert? Although Haygood's ultimate ambition of Christianizing
China was unfulfilled, she emerges as an originator, a zealot, and a
pioneer.

The last word in Professor Beatty's article on the nineteenth cen-
tury is sinophobia. Professors Gabard, Peeples, and Papageorge all
focused on the efforts of Georgians to expand American influence
and ideas in East Asia an expansion advanced through vigorous
commercial, diplomatic, missionary, and military effort. In the nine-
teenth century, American values were clearly being imposed on East
Asians, both stateside and overseas. Professor King, a specialist in
both Asian and United States history, asks how the career of Georgia

xiii

evangelist C.W. Pruitt fits the expansionist, imperialist stereotype.
How did Pruitt's attitude and behavior compare with his American
contemporaries' in East Asia? How did he differ from other Southern
Baptist missionaries in North China, such as Lottie Moon, T.P.
Crawford, and J.B. Hartwell, and from Presbyterian Calvin Mateer?

King utilized Pruitt's personal papers to probe his commitment and
religiosity. She concludes that Pruitt was not the typical imperialist
missionary. In letters to personal friends and family, as well as in
missionary publications, he emphasized the need to "respect and
love" the good in the Chinese. Furthermore, Pruitt was one of few
missionaries to retain a balanced view of American Christians, liken-
ing Americans who were enslaved by their passion for money to
Chinese who were enslaved by fears of demons. In presenting China
and the Chinese to American Church audiences, he avoided the "we-
they" framework through which many Americans viewed missions in
their host countries. He encouraged Americans to abandon their view
of the Chinese as a psychological "other," as opposites of American
national character traits. King concludes that Pruitt and Lottie Moon
approached the Chinese with humility instead of pride, as equals
rather than as betters. Both acknowledged the positive in Chinese
institutions, values, and people. They were ready to be changed by
their encounter with China, even while offering something of Ameri-
can institutions, values, and themselves.

In the third section of this volume, economist Ernest Ogram estab-
lishes an overall transition from the pre-World War II era of Georgia's
East Asia connection, often characterized by sinophobia and imperi-
alism, to new and changing dimensions of the connection in the
postwar era. Ogram's specialty is international business relations.
He sees trade as a dominant, enduring theme in the Georgia-Easl
Asia interaction. Ogram describes new types of business relation-
ships which have been cultivated by Georgians not only with China
but also with Japan, Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea. How did
those World War ll-ravaged but now rebuilt societies come to have
dealings with Georgia, and we with them? What is the nature of our
recent commercial ties? Ogram begins his article on the macro-
economic level, discussing overall post-World War II United States-
East Asian trade. He then proceeds micro-economically to a discus-
sion of trade relations between East Asia and the Southeastern

XIV

Jnited States, Georgia, and the metropolitan Atlanta area. He corn-
Dares Georgia's and Atlanta's East Asian trade with that of other
'egions of the United States. He documents East Asian commitments
n Georgia generally and in the Atlanta area specifically with stores,
-estaurants, factories, trading companies, banks, airlines, honorary
consulates, career consulates, and government trade and travel
Dffices. These enterprises have brought Georgia an East Asian
Dopulation which now numbers in the tens of thousands in the Atlanta
area alone, with significant presences of Koreans and Japanese,
dIus Chinese from the People's Republic, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Dgram is optimistic about post-nineteenth century trade relations
and about people-to-people contacts between Georgia and East
^sia.

Ogram's transitional piece is followed by George M. Lancaster's
Historical one comparing Massachusetts and Georgia as locations
:or potential Japanese investment. Mr. Lancaster is well qualified to
nake this comparison. From 1982 to 1985 he was an international
'epresentative for the State of Georgia Department of Industry and
frade, responsible for recruiting foreign manufacturers into Georgia.
rrom 1985 through 1986 he was Japan Program Director of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Office of International Trade and
ndustry. In that capacity he initiated a Japan investment program for
:he Commonwealth of Massachusetts and developed strategy to
acilitate Japanese company investment in that state. In 1989 he
Decame Director of International Sales for INFORUM/Atlanta, a divi-
sion of the Portman Companies, where he is responsible for sales in
Japan and Europe. Lancaster asks: What basic economic and social
conditions are conducive to Japanese investment? What role does
'quality of life" play in an upper-level Japanese managerial decision
:o locate a plant? What role do cultural factors such as "Southern
Hospitality" play in corporate decision-making? How do labor condi-
:ions in Massachusetts compare with those of Georgia? He contrasts
Massachusetts' history of labor unrest with the relatively calmer
abor/ management relationship in the Peach State and concludes
:hat Georgia provides a more attractive market for Japanese inves-
:ors than does the Bay State. Lancaster's comparative historical
Derspective on Japanese investment in Georgia is followed by his
Drother Day's survey of the Japan-Georgia relationship, its current

XV

status and future prospects. Day Lancaster is qualified to discuss
Georgia-Japan ties. He served as head of the Tokyo office of the
State of Georgia Department of Industry and Trade. In 1990 he is
Atlanta-based, serving that Department as its Senior Project Man-
ager. He cites particulars in the new post- World War II Japan-
Georgia relationship that both Ogram and George M. Lancaster
alluded to. He asks to what degree Georgia firms have invested in
Japan and why. What types of Japanese businesses are locating in
Georgia? And what are some of the cultural spin-offs of the commer-
cial contact, such as sister-city relations between Japanese and
Georgian metropolises and the sister-state relationship between
Georgia and Kagoshima Prefecture? He also warns of potential
imbalances and dangers in the overall Japan-Georgia relationship.

The general overviews of Ogram and the Lancasters are followec
by individual histories of an Asian immigrant group in Georgia and ol
civic organizations in Georgia with East Asian ties. Georgia's Kore-
ans are the largest Asian immigrant group in the state. Authoi
Gerdeen Dyer of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution served three tours
of duty with the United States Army in Korea. He subsequent^
published a guide to Georgia for South Koreans and has also writter
about Koreans in Georgia for the Journal-Constitution. Dyer's ac-
count is both historical and present- and future-oriented. He explains
why Koreans are leaving their homeland to settle permanently ir
Georgia and how Koreans organize themselves economically, relig-
iously, and socially here. He compares Korean and Japanese invest-
ment in Georgia. How may Korean immigration and investment ir
Georgia develop in the future? What effect did the 1988 Seou
Olympic Games have on the Georgia-Korean relationship and or
Atlanta's prospects for hosting the next Olympiad? How does the
political instability of the Republic of Korea affect current and pro-
spective Georgia-Korea ties?

Professors Donald O. Schneider, a professor of education, anc
Don Chang Lee, an anthropologist, analyze the role of educationa
organizations which have tried to promote an awareness of East Asia
among Georgians. Lee's Asian Studies Consortium of Georgia
(ASCOG) began work in January, 1986, just as Schneider's Japar
Education Network in Georgia (JENGA) became inactive. ASCOG ir
certain respects picked up the Japan-oriented activities of JENGA

XVI

although ASCOG has yet to implement the JENGA-type program of
developing primary and secondary school Asian studies curricula.

Elmer E. Felecki describes the Asia-related activities of a Georgia
association of veterans of World War II. Jack E. Buttram, executive
director of the Friends of Free China, discusses the political and
social activities of his Georgia membership.

Finally, George Waldner, formerly Executive Director of the Japan-
America Society of Georgia (JASG), and Chinese historian Edward
Krebs, of the United States-China People's Friendship Organization
(USCPFA), separately analyze the history of an internationally-ori-
ented people-to-people friendship group in Atlanta. Both the Japan-
America Society of Georgia and the Atlanta chapter of the United
States-China People's Friendship Association are by-products of
diplomatic and commercial ties between Georgia and East Asia. Both
organizations provide hospitality for East Asians in Atlanta on tempo-
rary or long term assignments. Both groups seek to promote native
Georgians' friendship toward, and understanding of, the two largest,
but sometimes misunderstood East Asian nations. JASG and USCPFA
today represent a new level of international cooperation and friend-
ship but they contrast markedly with each other. The Japan Society,
with close ties to the Coca-Cola Company, operates from an impres-
sive financial base, with paid staff and rented offices in the Colony
Square high-rise office tower. USCPFA, as its name may suggest, is
more of a low profile organization which lacks corporate support.
Krebs describes how Georgians interested in China at a key histori-
cal juncture were able to establish an organization through grass
roots recruiting. The resources of the new organization frequently
amounted to little more than the organizers' own personal enthusi-
asm, that had in some cases been generated by eye-opening visits to
the People's Republic of China. Krebs describes an organization that
has evolved largely independent of the goals and interests which
many Georgians have traditionally had in East Asia: the pursuit of
money, strategic power, and/or converts to Christianity. Krebs' ac-
count prompts the reader to consider the possibility that the China
Friendship Association may be the most successful institutional ex-
ample of close personal ties between Georgians and East Asians in
over two hundred and fifty years of interaction. What would Loo
Chang say if he could attend a Friendship Association reception in

XVII

Atlanta for scholars from a proud and independent China?

Georgia's East Asian Connection: Into the Twenty-first Century
emphasizes the progress achieved in establishing international rela-
tions. It notes the impassioned ideas with which Georgians have
come to view East Asia and with which East Asians have come to
view us. At a time when these relations have escalated to critical
levels in terms of competition for technological leadership and mar-
kets, these topics deserve to be explored with the candor provided by
serious scholarship. Hopefully, this volume will inspire an ongoing
dialogue on the nature of Georgia's past and present East Asian
connection.

With both an interest in past relationships between Georgia and
East Asia and an awareness of the potential for stronger ties in the
future, West Georgia College Studies in the Social Sciences devotes
this issue to Georgia's East Asia Connection: Into the Twenty-first
Century. The Series Editor and the Volume Editor of this issue wish
to express their gratitude to the following people without whose
assistance the issue could not have come about: Richard Matthews,
The Atlanta Journal; W. Allyn Rickett, University of Pennsylvania
emeritus; Kenneth Berger Duke University Library; John D. Welsh,
formerly of the State of Georgia Department of Industry and Trade;
and James Dan Minish, Vedat Gunay, and Jerome T. Mock, West
Georgia College. Special words of appreciation also must be ex-
tended to Frank Joseph Shulman of the University of Maryland and
Father John W. Witek of Georgetown University who, at a break
between sessions at a 1987 Association for Asian Studies meeting,
urged the production of a second volume on Georgia's East Asian
connection to amplify the original volume. Albert S. Hanser, chairman
of the West Georgia College history department, generously pro-
vided teaching schedules that facilitated the completion of this vol-
ume. Both Dr. Hanser and West Georgia College Vice-President for
Academic Affairs John T. Lewis III generously provided financial
assistance over and beyond the substantial contribution of West
Georgia College Arts and Sciences Dean Richard Dangle that made
this publication possible. The Series Editor and Volume Editor wish
to thank West Georgia College's Lori Morgan, Beth Beggs, Darlene
Bearden, Sheila Smith, Lisa Daniels, and Peggy Coleman for typing
and printing assistance. Even here one finds a Georgia East-Asia

xviii

connection, since Mrs. Coleman grew up in the Republic of Korea.
Lastly, special words of appreciation must be extended to West
Georgia College Sociology Professor Lee-jan Jan, whose art work
adorns both the 1983 and 1990 volumes. The 1990 cover contains
Dr. Jan's calligraphic dedication to the Chinese youth "who died for
their country in Tien An Men Square." This volume as a whole is
dedicated to their memory.

JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN
Associate Professor of History
West Georgia College
Volume Editor

XIX

The Historical Experience:
East Asians in Georgia

Historical Documents Relating to

Asian- Americans and to East Asia in the

National Archives - Southeast Region

GAYLE PETERS, JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN, and MERLIN KIRK*

The National Archives-Southeast Region, in Atlanta, Georgia, is
one of eleven regional branches of the National Archives of the
United States. A system of regional branches was established in
1969, when the National Archives created a network of archival
repositories to enhance access to historically valuable records cre-
ated by regional and field offices of the federal government. Re-
gional branches were established in Boston, New York City, Philadel-
phia, Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Fort Worth, Denver, Los Ange-
les, San Francisco, and Seattle. The records deposited in the Atlanta
branch come from federal agencies in Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennes-
see. The holdings of the Atlanta branch consist of approximately

* Since 1 972 Gayle Peters has been regional archivist in Atlanta for the National Archives and
Records Service. He previously served as archivist in the Lyndon Johnson Presidential
Library, Austin, Texas. He received a B.A. in history from Carroll College in 1 967, and an M.A.
in Latin American studies from University of Texas in 1 969. He has published "The Regional
Archives System and its East Point Branch" in Georgia Archive 1, No. 2 (Spring 1973).
Professor Goldstein teaches East Asian history at West Georgia College and is a Research
Associate of Harvard University's John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Research. He
received his Ph.D. in American-East Asian relations in 1973 from the University of Pennsyl-
vania, where he studied under Hilary Conroy. He has published Philadelphia and the China
Trade 1682-1846 (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978), and
articles in Korea Focus and Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i. Merlin Kirk received a B.A. in social studies
education from Southwest Missouri State University in 1 974. He is an M.A. candidate in East
Asian history at West Georgia College and has worked as an intern at the Atlanta Regional
Archives Branch under the supervision of Mr. Peters and Dr. Goldstein.

45,000 cubic feet of identified archives dating from 1716 through
1983, most of which are available to researchers.

In an effort to make additional important documents in the National
Archives more accessible to researchers, the agency has engaged in
a program of depositing in each of the regional archives branches
collections of microfilm copies of significant records in National Ar-
chives custody. These microfilmed records contain basic documen-
tation for ethnic, political, and economic history, international rela-
tions, political science, law, and genealogy. The additional docu-
ments comprise an important part of the Atlanta branch's holdings.
Some 45,000 microfilm rolls ofsuch records are available for inspec-
tion in the research room at the Atlanta Federal Archives and Rec-
ords Center, 1557 St. Joseph Avenue, East Point, Georgia, 30344.
Information about hours and services can be obtained by writing the
National Archives- Southeast Region or calling (404) 763-7477.

United States Census Records

The articles in this volume by Pruden, Brown, Ganschow, and
Beatty on the Chinese settlements in Savannah, Augusta, and Way-
nesboro, Georgia, are examples of the type of historical research on
Asian-Americans which can be performed using United States cen-
sus data such as is available in the Atlanta branch. A census of the
United States population has been required by law every ten years
since 1790. The Atlanta branch has microfilm copies of the 1790
through 1880 censuses; the 1900 and 1910 censuses; and frag-
ments of the 1890 census, which was largely destroyed by a 1921
fire. The 1790-1840 censuses included the name, age, and state,
territory, or country of birth of each free person in a household. The
censuses of 1850-80 included a list of those persons who died
between June of the previous year and June of the census year.

Some information from the 1920-80 censuses must legally be
withheld from public access for seventy years, in the interest of
individual privacy. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of available
information for historians wishing to reconstruct residential, occupa-
tional, and other social patterns within Asian-American communities
in Georgia as Pruden, Brown, Ganschow, and Beatty have done.

Federal Court Records

Federal court records are a second type of document useful for
reconstructing the history of immigrants to Georgia from East Asia.

Court records contain notice of naturalization, or the process
whereby an alien became a United States citizen. In the 1700s and
1800s a naturalization oath could be administered in a federal, state,
or local court. Therefore, these records are often difficult to locate.
The Atlanta branch has federal circuit and district court records for
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and North and
South Carolina generally covering the years 1 789-1 955. The branch
also stores indexes for 1 790-1 906 South Carolina federal courts and
for the Savannah, Georgia, federal courts from 1790-1860. If a
researcher knows the court and the approximate date, federal court
records of an immigrant's naturalization can be readily checked. The
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service also has naturalization
records from 1 906 to the present and can be contacted directly.

The Atlanta branch's judicial records can also be a source of
information for scholars interested in the constitutional status of
Asian-Americans in Georgia. One example of this type of research is
Professor Beatty's account in this volume of litigation concerning the
expulsion of Loo Chang from Waynesboro in 1883.

United States Customs' Passenger Lists

Ship passenger lists are a third source useful for reconstructing
immigration patterns from Asia and elsewhere. The Atlanta branch
has microfilm copies of some ship passenger lists for Atlantic and
Gulf Coast ports for 1820-73, including Charleston (1820-28), Mobile
(1832-52), and Savannah (1820-31 and 1847-68). The National
Archives has other passenger list records on microfilm which may be
purchased or viewed in Washington.

Selective Service System Records

World War I draft registration cards are a fourth type of document
which may be useful for the professional historian of Asian-American
communities, as well as for the genealogist. Registration cards
corroborate address and age information for indidividuals in Georgia
and elsewhere in the United States. The Atlanta branch has cards

for most of the 24 million men who registered for the draft in 1 91 7-18.
The drafts were held as follows: (1 ) June 5, 1917, registered all men
between the ages of 21 and 31 ; (2) June 5, 1918, registered all men
who had become 21 since June 5, 1917; and (3) September 12,
1 91 8, registered all men between the ages of 1 8 and 21 and 31 to 45.

These records are filed by draft board. In order to search them, the
full name of the person and his address at the time of registration are
necessary. For large cities a street address is necessary. For other
areas the name of the county is usually sufficient. A photocopy of
both sides of the draft card can be furnished for a fee.

The draft cards for some states (not Georgia) have been sent to
other Archives branches for microfilming. The Atlanta branch pres-
ently stores cards for all states except Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah,
Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming, West Virginia and Wis-
consin.

State Department Records on East Asia

In addition to census, federal court, ship passenger, and Selective
Service System records on Asian-Americans, the Atlanta branch has
a wealth of State Department information on state-to-state relations
between the United States and nations and dependencies in East
Asia and the Pacific Ocean. The places for which the Atlanta branch
has information include: China and foreign colonies within China;
Japan; Korea; Asiatic Russia, including Alaska before its purchase
by the United States; Burma; Thailand; Indochina; Malaysia; Sin-
gapore; Brunei; Indonesia; the Philippines; the Hawaiian Islands;
Tonga; Samoa; Tahiti; Fiji; New Britain Island; and the U.S. Trust
Territory of the Pacific.

State Department documents in the Atlanta branch, like the four
other types of records already described, contain an abundance of
information on Asian and Pacific immigration to Georgia and to the
United States. Additionally, the diplomatic documents are treasure
troves of information on political and economic relations between
Georgia and East Asia and the United States and East Asia from the
time of the Continental Congress (1774) to the present. Diplomatic
documents concern some of the most significant events in American-
East Asian relations between 1774 and 1929: the first Sino-Ameri-
can Treaty (1844); Commodore Matthew Perry's 1853-54 opening of

Japan for the United States, and subsequent U.S. -Japanese treaties;
the United States purchase of Russian America; changes in owner-
ship of Taiwan; the Russo-Japanese War; the Bolshevik Revolution;
and U.S. armed intervention in Asiatic Russia. Letters, notes, and
diaries which are included in these records reflect the involvement of
both U.S. government officials and of private citizens in East Asia
since 1774. Diplomats, explorers, soldiers, sailors, journalists, busi-
nessmen, missionaries, "special agents", and Presidents are men-
tioned in these records, along with their hopes, fears, and plans.

These microfilms also contain information about Asian govern-
ments and individuals, European colonial powers with real or desired
empires in Asia, and American viewpoints of those European de-
sires.

These records can be used to study diplomatic history: the open-
ing of relations with Japan; the treatment of China by the United
States and European powers; and American perceptions of its role
as an "Imperial Power." Territorial expansion of the American nation
into the Pacific can be traced: Manifest Destiny; the purchase of
Alaska; and the acquisition of Samoa, Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam,
Wake, and other Pacific Islands.

The development of Japan from a medieval to a modern state may
be seen in records dating from Perry's trip, through Japan's late
nineteenth century controversy with the United States over Japanese
immigration.

Military adventures and activities are presented in reports on the
Opium War, the Boxer Rebellion, Japan's wresting of Taiwan from
China, the Spanish-American War in the Philippines, the Russo-
Japanese War, and the Asian campaigns of World War I, especially
the Allied armed intervention in Asiatic Russia in 1 91 8. Foreign trade
of individual nations is reported in United States consular, ministerial,
and ambassadorial despatches.

The articles by Gabard and Peeples in this volume are but two
examples of the type of historical research on American-East Asian
relations that can be done using the National Archives' diplomatic
records. These professional historians have been able to reconstruct
the lives and careers of two Georgia diplomats active in China, and to
ascribe some historical significance to their government service.
Apart from the articles of Gabard and Peeples, it is unfortunate that

[he type of diplomatic document pertaining to East Asia which is
available in Atlanta has been under-utilized by Georgia college stu-
dents and scholars. Researchers can use the underutilized docu-
nents in the Atlanta branch for writing undergraduate and graduate
'esearch papers, monographs, and scholarly books in East Asian
nistory.

To encourage more scholars to use East Asian diplomatic docu-
ments, the Atlanta branch has made a conscious and costly effort to
acquire even more microfilmed records pertaining to East Asia than
are owned by its ten sister branches. Some fifteen microfilmed
Dublications on China, Japan, and Korea exist in Atlanta and in no
Dther Archives branch.1

War Department Records Relating to East Asia

The Atlanta branch stores an abundance of United States War
Department and War Department-related records about East Asia.
These include: Records of the American Section of the Supreme
War Council, 1917-19; Historical files of the American Expeditionary
Forces in Siberia, 1918-20; Historical information relating to military
posts, 1700-1900; Documents of the War Department's Bureau of
Insular Affairs relating to the Philippines and other insular posses-
sions of the United States, 1876-1906; and Records pertaining to
Axis Relations and Interests in the Far East 1933-45.2

Navy Department Records Relating to East Asia

The Navy Department records in the Atlanta branch are an espe-
cially varied and useful source of information for the researcher on
Asian and Pacific history. The first collection of records deals with
official exploration of the Pacific Ocean, especially the expedition
around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean by Lieutenant Charles
Wilkes in 1832-42.3 A second collection of records contains corre-
spondence from commanders of the United States' Asiatic Squad-
ron, reorganized variously as the Pacific and as the East India
Squadron between 1841 and 1886. The letters from the Squadrons'
commanding officers concern such key events in modern East Asian
history as Commodore Matthew C. Perry's successful 1853-54 mis-
sion to open Japan to United States trade.4

In summary, the Atlanta branch is a storehouse of untapped
resources for the Georgia researcher interested either in the Asian-
American experience within his/her own state, or in the historical,
economic, and political ties between Georgia and East Asia and the
United States and East Asia. In this volume articles by Pruden,
Brown, Ganschow, Beatty, Gabard and Peeples are examples of the
type of history which can be written using the archival resources
which the Federal Government has made available to every Geor-
gian free of charge.

NOTES

1 The catalog National Archives Microfilm Publications (Washington, D.C.; National Archives
and Records Service, 1974 with supplements) describes the total collection available in
Washington. Many public and campus libraries have purchased microfilms from the
National Archives and should be contacted concerning the extent and availability of their
collection.

The microfilm publications are divided into two series identified by "M" numbers and "T"
numbers. In general, records selected for filming as an "M" publication have high research
value for a variety of studies, and the ratio of research value to volume is high. They are
arranged so that scholars can glean information from the film copy easily. Usually each
publication reproduces an entire series of records.

Most "M" publications have an introduction describing origin, content, and arrangement
of the records filmed and listing related records. Some introductions include special aids,
such as indexes or registers. Descriptive pamphlets are available for most "M" publica-
tions. The pamphlet contains the publications introduction (including special lists or
indexes prepared to simplify the use of the microfilm publication) and the table of contents.
These pamphlets are furnished to film purchasers and are available on request to prospec-
tive purchasers.

"T" publications supplement "M" publications. Unlike "M" publications they are not
usually a reproduction of a complete series of records; that is, they may be a segment, by
date or subject, of a larger series. In many cases "T" publications were produced in
response to a special reference request. Also, over the years the National Archives has
received microfilm produced by other Federal agencies. Some of this film, when it is not
defense classified and is deemed of sufficient research value, is made available for sale as
"T" publications. These publications contain no introductions nor are descriptive pam-
phlets available for them.

Fifteen microfilm publications unavailable in other Regional Archive branches have
been acquired by the Atlanta branch to support East Asian research in the Southeast.
These publications include both State Department and War Department records:

Consular Despatches: Amoy, China 1844-1906, M 100, 15 rolls; Chungking
(Chongqing), China, 1896-1906, M 104, 1 roll; Kanagawa, Japan, 1861-1897, M 135, 2
rolls; Seoul, Korea 1888-1906, M 167, 2 rolls; Yokohama, Japan, 1897-1906, M 136, 5
rolls.

Decimal File 1910-1929: China Internal Affairs, M 239, 227 rolls; China-U.S. Rela-
tions, M 339, 2 rolls; China-Other States, M 241 , 34 rolls; Japan-Internal Affairs, M 422,
43 rolls; Japan-U.S. Relations, M 423, 9 rolls; Japan-Other States, M 424, 1 roll.

Other State Department Records: Relating to World War I and its termination, 1 91 4-
1929, M 367, 159 rolls; General Records of the American Commission to Negotiate
Peace, 1918-1931, M 820, 160 rolls;

War Department Records: Historical Files of the Allied Expeditionary Forces,
Siberia, M 917, 11 rolls; and Records of the American Section, Supreme War Council,
M 923, 21 rolls.

The scope of the East Asian diplomatic documents available in Atlanta is vast chrono-
logically and topically. The papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-89, contain occa-
sional reference to East Asia, especially after 1783, when the first United States ship to
China inaugurated extensive commerce between the two nations.

Papers of the Continental Congress are available as: 1774-1789, M 247, 204 rolls;
miscellaneous papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, M 332, 8 rolls; and foreign
letters of the Continental Congress and the State Department, 1774-1789, M 61, 1 roll. A
descriptive pamphlet is available. These papers make reference to the earliest contacts
between the United States and East Asia following the first voyage of a United States
vessel to China and back in 1 783-84. The index to the papers of the Continental Congress
reveals the following entries concerning East Asia: Canton-47 entries; China-41 entries;
Cochin China-1 entry; East lndies-102 entries; East India companies-48 entries; Sea of
Japan-2 entries.

M 28, 5 rolls, continues the "foreign letters" (M 61) of the papers of the Continental
Congress and contains record copies of communications addressed by the State Depart-
ment to Diplomatic and Consular representatives abroad. Notices of appointments, ap-
proval or disapproval of proposals or actions, inquiries and information, transmittal letters
conveying enclosures, or actual instructions, are included. While letters to representatives
of European colonial powers constitute the vast majority of the correspondence, communi-
cations addressed to them may concern colonial East Asian activities and subjects. Only
one East Asian post is listed: Canton (Guangzhou), 1793-1800. The earliest substantial
body of documents in Atlanta concerning East Asia is the official correspondence between
the State Department in Washington and its ambassadors in East Asia from 1789 to 1906.
Copies of diplomatic instructions sent by the State Department to American representa-
tives abroad give notices of appointments, convey information or inquiries, express
approval or disapproval of proposals and actions, transmit enclosures, or present instruc-
tions. The Atlanta branch owns U.S. diplomatic instructions to ambassadors in China,
Japan, Korea, Russia, Siam, and Hawaii. The branch also owns documents relating to
special U.S. Diplomatic missions between 1833-1906 to Borneo, China, Cochin China,
Hawaii, Japan, the Philippine Islands, Siam, and Tonga.

Most of the ambassadorial documents reflect economic or diplomatic relations of
specific events in the area such as the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) or the Spanish
American War (1898). Both diplomatic instructions from the State Department to ambas-
sadors abroad, as well as diplomatic despatches sent by ministers and representatives
back to the department, are stored in the Archives branch. Diplomatic despatches from
each country have been kept separate and it is thus possible to quickly locate the flow of
information each diplomat furnished the State Department. When the instructions are
juxtaposed to the despatches, a researcher can gain insight into discussion and resolution
of issues by ambassadors and by the Secretary of State. Despatches from United States
diplomatic representatives in East Asian nations in the Archives branch include:

Despatches from United States Ministers to China, 1843-1906, M 92, 131 rolls, de-
scriptive pamphlet available. These communications concern China Proper, Manchu-
ria, Tibet, Taiwan, Korea, the Spanish and U.S. Philippines, French Indochina and
Asiatic Russia. The communications discuss the opening of treaty ports and extra-
territorial rights of American citizens, the Opium War, Taiping Rebellion, Sino-Japanese

Wars, Boxer Rebellion, and requests for more U.S. Naval vessels in Chinese waters.
Despatches also describe the problems of piracy, treatment of shipwrecked American
seamen, protection of missionaries, Chinese emigration to and exclusion from the
United States, claims of American citizens in China against the Chinese government,
prohibition of the opium trade, the coolie trade, floods, famines, epidemics, shipping,
trade, natural resources, agriculture, education, roads, river transport, mail service, the
Trans-Siberian and other railroads, telephone and telegraph services. Enclosures
consist of: notes to and from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, consular reports on
commerce, pamphlets, newspapers, and confidential communications on sensitive
events.

Despatches from United States ministers to Japan, 1855-1906, M 133, 82 rolls, de-
scriptive pamphlet available. These communications cover the Sino-Japanese and the
Russo-Japanese Wars and changes in Japan's system of government. Enclosures
include notes to and from the Japanese foreign ministry, reports from American consuls
in Japan, letters from private U.S. citizens, newspapers, pamphlets, and confidential
despatches.

Despatches from United States ministers to Korea, 1883-1905, M 134, 22 rolls, de-
scriptive pamphlet available. These communications contain notes to American repre-
sentatives from the Korean foreign ministry and from private American citizens, letters
from American representatives to Korean officials, pamphlets, and newspaper clip-
pings.

Despatches from United States ministers to Russia, 1808-1905, M 134, 22 rolls. A
roll list can be found at the beginning of the first roll. These despatches concern fishing
disputes in the North Pacific, territorial disputes over Alaska and the northwest part of
North America, the Russo-Japanese War, and the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905.
Correspondence from the American consulate in Vladivostok, Asiatic Russia, is in-
cluded.

Despatches from United States ministers to Siam, 1882-1906, M 172, 9 rolls, de-
scriptive pamphlet available. These communications contain notes from the Siamese
Foreign Office with royal orders; announcements of court ceremonies; complaints
against citizens and officials of the United States; pamphlets; newspapers; and confi-
dential despatches. From 1882 to 1903, the posts of minister resident and consul
general were combined. Only diplomatic, rather than consular communication, is
reproduced.

References to East Asia can also be found in the Archives branch in correspondence
between the State Department in Washington and U.S. ambassadors stationed in Euro-
pean nations with Asiatic colonies: Great Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Russia, and Spain.

The Atlanta branch also owns correspondence between the State Department and its
consular representatives abroad. These papers are arranged by the name of the city or
post, and describe economic, political, and social conditions. Many despatches are
accompanied by copies of correspondence between consuls and local government offi-
cials, U.S. diplomatic representatives, non-U. S. consuls, U.S. Navy officers commanding
vessels stationed in foreign waters, and American citizens abroad. The Archives branch
owns copies of U.S. consular correspondence with the following East Asian cities:

Despatches from United States consuls in Amoy (Xiamen), China, 1844-1906, M
100, 15 rolls. An introduction can be found at the beginning of the first roll. These
despatches contain reports from consular agencies at Tamsui (Tanshui), Keelung,
(Jilong), Takao (Gaoxiong) and Taiwanfoo (Tainan, 1875-86; Taizhong, 1887-95), all
on the island of Taiwan; as well as, for a brief period in the late 1870s, Swatow
(Shantou), China. Many despatches enclose tables of consular fees received, arrivals

10

and departures of American vessels, and trade statistics. Some despatches describe
mutinies aboard American vessels, anti-foreign and anti-missionary disturbances, in-
cluding the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-American boycott of 1905, shipment of Chinese
contract laborers, epidemics, and the Xiamen tea trade. The papers are rich in materi-
als concerning Taiwan, which was under Chinese control until 1895, when it became a
dependency of Japan. In addition to reports of journeys made to the island by various
American consuls, there is material on an abortive punitive expedition of 1867, led by
Rear Admiral Henry Bell, commanding the U.S. Asiatic Squadron. Also included is
material on: Consul Charles Le Gendre's 1 867 agreement with aboriginal tribes for the
protection of shipwrecked sailors; an 1874 Japanese punitive expedition; and Japan's
1895 occupation of the island.

Despatches from United States consuls in Chungking (Chongqing) China, 1896-
1906, m 104, 1 roll. Papers are arranged chronologically, with an introduction and
register. This collection contains despatches from Chongqing, from 1896 to 1901,
when the consulate closed; and from 1905-06.

Despatches from United States consuls in Kanagawa, Japan, 1861-1897, M 135, 22
rolls. A roll list can be found in the catalog: National Archives Microfilm Publications, p.
38.

Despatches from United States consuls in Yokohama, Japan, 1897-1906, M 136, 5
rolls. An introduction can be found at the beginning of the first roll. These records
contain the Kanagawa post records (Kanagawa is a present-day suburb of Yokohama)
found on M 135. The documents contain communications sent from Yokohama during
the period when that post was classified as a consulate general. The consular des-
patches cover trade statistics, arrivals and departures of American vessels, social and
political conditions, and agricultural and industrial processes.

Despatches from United States consuls in Medan-Padang, Sumatra, 1853-1898, T
1 06, 2 rolls. A roll list can be found in the 1 974 National Archives Microfilm Publications
catalog, p. 42.

Despatches from United States consuls in Seoul, Korea, 1886-1906, M 1 67, 2 rolls,

descriptive pamphlet available. During the period covered by these despatches Seoul

was a combined diplomatic and consular post of the Department of State. The ranking

U.S. official held the title of Minister Resident and Consul General.

The above records contain only consular material. Notes from foreign embassies in

Washington to the State Department include communications from foreign ministries,

heads of state, and private citizens. They also include copies of proclamations and

newspapers. The Atlanta branch owns copies of notes to the State Department from the

embassies of the following Asian and Pacific nations:

Notes from the Chinese legation, 1868-1906, M 98, 6 rolls descriptive pamphlet
available.

Notes from the Japanese legation, 1858-1906, M 1 63, 9 rolls, descriptive pamphlet
available. These notes include communications from Japanese rulers or officials of the
Japanese foreign office to Presidents of the United States or to Secretaries of State.

Notes from the Korean legation, 1858-1906, M 166, 1 roll. The first roll contains an
introduction and includes letters and telegrams from Korean rulers and officials to the
President of the United States or to Secretaries of State as well as drafts of communica-
tions from American officials to Korean officials; memoranda of conversations; and
drafts of proposed agreements between Korea and the United States.

Notes from Russian legation, 1809-1906, M 39, 12 rolls, descriptive pamphlet
available. These volumes contain letters of complaint against United States officials
and citizens, pamphlets, and newspapers. The communications are in French; many
are accompanied by English translations prepared by the Department of State. In-

11

eluded are some communications from Russian consular officials in the United States
and from the Russian Chancellor; memoranda by the State Department officials com-
menting on the notes; and drafts and texts of agreements between Russia and the
United States. The notes and their enclosures concern difficulties between the two
countries over Russian America; the position of the Greek Orthodox and Moravian
Churches in Alaska, the purchase of Alaska in 1867; the Fur Seal Arbitration; the 'Open
Sea' question; the cession of the Kurile Islands by Russia to Japan in exchange for the
northern half of Sakhalin Island; the attitude of Russia toward the 1893 Hawaiian revo-
lution; possible participation by Russia in the Chinese coolie trade; the leasing of Dalian
to Russia by China in 1898; the Boxer Rebellion; Sino-Japanese differences over
Korea; the Russo-Japanese War, including the matter of Chinese neutrality; tariffs; ex-
tradition; international exposition; exchange of scientific and technical information;
and transportation.

Notes from the Siamese legation, 1876-1906, T 161, 1 roll. Papers are arranged
chronologically.

In 1 91 0 the State Department adopted a decimal classification system which combined
diplomatic and consular communications. Records were divided into several subject
classes, including internal affairs of a country and political relations between countries.
The decimal file consists of nine primary classes numbered 0-8, each covering a broad
subject area. Under class 7 'Political Relations of States', the documents are arranged
according to the countries concerned. Each country has been assigned a two-digit
number. For example, the State Department has grouped the records relating to World
War I on the file classification for political relations between Austria (63) and Serbia (72),
the initial belligerents in that war. The subjects covered include the conduct of the war and
neutrality, the Russian Revolution in Asia, and Allied intervention. The total microfilm
consists of 518 rolls, but the Atlanta branch possesses only the first 159 rolls. While the
159 rolls include a complete list of documents in the microfilm publication, the documents
themselves relating to certain facets of neutrality, neutral commerce, prisoners of war and
the termination of the war are not available from the Atlanta office.

Political relations may be with the United States or with other states. Abstracts of docu-
ments are filmed on the first roll or rolls of each microfilm publication. The Atlanta branch
has the following decimal files on microfilm for China and Japan between 1910 and 1929:
Records of the Department of State relating to internal affairs of China, 1910-1929,
M 329, 227 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. The records are chiefly instructions to
and despatches from diplomatic and consular officials, diplomatic notes exchanged,
pamphlets, pictures, newpaper clippings, memoranda prepared by officials and corre-
spondence between officials and government departments with private firms and
persons. The subjects include: the Chinese Revolution of October 191 1 ; the ascen-
dancy of Chiang K'ai-shek; biographical sketches of political and military leaders and
summaries of the political, military, social, and economic development in the provinces
since 191 1 ; the movement for restoration of the Manchus; political and military conflict
between southern and northern China; Civil War and Revolution in north China, 1922-
1928; the relationship between the Communists and the Guomintang; Chiang's break
with the Communists in 1928; involvement of the United States, Japan, and Western
Europe in China; public order and safety; and railway licensing and construction.

Records of the State Department relating to political relations between the United
States and China, 1910-1929, M 339, 2 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. These
records include instructions to and despatches from diplomatic and consular officials
concerned with extraterritoriality in China, treaties on tariffs, friendship, commerce, arbi-
tration, navigation, and renunciation of war.

Records of the Department of State relating to political relations between China and

12

the United States 1910-1929, M 341, 34 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. The
records are mostly instructions to, and despatches from, diplomatic and consular offi-
cials. These records concern: readjustment of China's treaty relations with foreign
powers to provide for tariff autonomy and the abolition of extraterritoriality; reaction by
the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Portugal to proposals of
the Chinese government, plus a draft of the reply by the United States to the proposals,
1925; Chinese proposals for treaty revision, 1928; the question of extraterritoriality; the
Washington Conference on Limitation of Armament, 1921-22; and Sino-Japanese
relations.

Records of the Department of State relating to internal affairs of Japan 1910-1 929, M
422, 43 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. The papers are arranged by subject in a
decimal filing system, with a list of documents on rolls one through three. The system
gives brief abstracts of the documents and serves as a finding aid to them. Some of the
documents on the lisi do not appear in the records because of national security restric-
tions. These records concern Japanese military activities abroad; the Tokyo-Yokohama
Earthquake of 1923; proposed loans to Japanese cities and commercial enterprises;
visits of Japanese vessels to other nations; patents; trademarks; copyrights; immigra-
tion; emigration; Taiwan; and Sakhalin Island.

Records of the Department of State relating to political relations between the United
States and Japan 1910-1929, M 423, 9 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. These
records concern Japanese immigration to mainland United States: the Immigration Act
of 1924; anti-American feelings in Japan; anti-Japanese feelings in the United States;
the "Gentlemen's Agreement" of 1908; picture brides; adopted children; rumors of war
between the United States and Japan; and relations between Hawaii and Japan and be-
tween the Philippine Islands and Japan.

Records of the Department of State relating to political relations between Japan and
other states, 1910-1929, M 424, 1 roll, descriptive pamphlet available. These records
are mostly instructions to and despatches from our diplomatic and consular officials in
Japan and in other countries. Also included are memoranda prepared by officials of the
department, and correspondence with officials of other government departments, and
with private firms and individuals. These records relate to the foreign policy of Japan,
treaties and agreements between Japan and other states, and relations between Japan
and Korea.

The Atlanta branch also owns microfilm copies of the following miscellaneous records
of the State Department:

List of United States diplomatic officers, 1798-1939, M 586, 3 rolls, descriptive
pamphlet available. Papers are arranged by nation and post, thereafter chronologi-
cally. This list presents the names of the officers, their titles or grades, nationalities,
places of birth, residences when appointed, and dates of appointments for each post.
Countries of East Asia that are listed include: China, Cochin-China, Japan, Korea,
Russia, and Siam.

List of United States consular officers, 1789-1939, M 587, 21 rolls, descriptive
pamphlet available. Papers are arranged by post (usually city or town), thereafter
chronologically. This list contains the names of the consular officers with their titles or
grades, nationalities, places of birth, residences when appointed, and dates of appoint-
ment. Consular posts in the following East Asian/Pacific nations are included: Celebes,
China, Cochin-China, Fiji, Formosa (Taiwan), Guam, Japan, Java, Korea, Marshall
Islands, New Britain Islands, Philippines, Russia, Samoa, Sandwich Islands (Hawaii),
Siam (Thailand), Sumatra, and Tahiti.

Papers relating to the cession of Alaska, 1856-1867, T 495, 1 roll, is arranged
chronologically, and records the negotiations between Russia and the United States

13

over the cession of Alaska. Included is correspondence between both parties as well as
the official documents of the transaction.

"The Alaska Treaty" by David Hunter Miller, 1867, T 1024, 1 roll, contains the pro-
ceedings and records of the treaty that transferred Alaska to the United States frorr
Russia. This document was prepared by David Hunter Miller, who was editor for the De-
partment of State in 1867.

Records of the Russian-American Company, 1802, 1817-1867, M 11, 77 rolls, de-
scriptive pamphlet available. These Russian-language records consist of the history
and activities of the Russian-American Company, established by Tsar Paul I in 179S
and granted a monopoly of trade in Russia's North American possessions for twenty
years. This monopoly was renewed in 1 821 and 1 842 and was in effect when the Unitec
States purchased the territory in 1867. Their records concern the business of the com-
pany, colonization, and relations with other countries having interest in the area.

Minutes of treaty conferences between United States and Japanese representa-
tives, and treaty drafts, March 1 1-July22, 1872, T 1 19, 1 roll. These minutes contain the
notes, drafts, minutes and list of personnel participating in Japanese-American treaty
talks. The eventual treaty called for American aid in scientific, educational, and agricul-
tural endeavors.

Records of the Department of State relating to the Paris Peach Commission, 1898, |
954, 3 rolls. These records contain the transactions of the commission that reached a
settlement to the Spanish-American War. The documents include official correspon-
dence, notes, memos, and the final terms for ending the war.

Personal and confidential letters from Secretary of State Lansing to Presiden
Wilson, 1915-1918, M 743, 1 roll, descriptive pamphlet available. This collection ol
press copies of personal and confidential letters from Secretary of State Robert Lansing
to President Wilson between August 1915 and July 1918 concern diplomatic relations
with Russia and Japan, despatches received from United States diplomatic and consu-
lar officers in Asia, and notes to Japan, China, Russia, Col. Edward House, and cabinel
members.

Records of the Department of State relating to World War I and its termination, 1914-
1929, M 367, 159 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available.

General records of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace (ACTNP), 1918-
31, M 820, 160 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. These papers contain: the corre-
spondence of the commission; minutes and reports of the various committees, councils,
commissions, field missions, and plenary sessions; minutes of the meetings of the
Conference of Ambassadors, 1920-31 ; and memoranda, publications, pamphlets, maps,
and personal records. This microfilm publication contains 563 rolls; the Atlanta branch
possesses only the first 160. These 160 rolls include an explanatory key; the complete
list of documents, and records relating to general commission activities; minutes ol
meetings of the Conference of Ambassadors, 1920-31 ; and matters discussed by the
Supreme War Council, by the Supreme Economic Council, and by committees and
commissions subordinated to the ACTNP. The 1 60 rolls do not include other questions
considered by the Peace Conference, or political affairs world-wide, especially Asia.
2War Department records relating to East Asia in the Atlanta branch include Records of the
American section of the Supreme War Council, 1917-19, M 923, 21 rolls, descriptive
pamphlet available. The Supreme War Council was created in late 1917 to coordinate
prosecution of World War I. It considered important policy questions that only the heads of
government could decide; it made policy, not plans. Subjects considered by the Council
included the composition and employment of a general reserve, use of American troops,
intervention in Asiatic Russia, and terms and implementations of the Armistice. The
records of the American section of the Supreme War Council consist of letters, reports,

14

studies, minutes, telegrams, charts, maps, pamphlets, and books sent to and received
from American, French, British, and Italian personnel. These documents reflect the role of
the American section in collecting and analyzing data to support the Supreme War
Council's work in coordinating the Allied war effort in 1918, in implementing the terms of
the Armistice, and in drafting peace treaties in 1919. This series of records includes
reports from American liaison officers at Marshall Ferdinand Foch's Headquarters; reports
from military attaches and observers at Allied and neutral capitals on political and military
conditions in Russia, Germany, and other countries; minutes of the meetings of permanent
military representatives; and minutes of the meetings of the Supreme War Council. The
records contain considerable information on the Allied intervention in Siberia, on the
political and economic situation in northeast Asia (Siberia, Manchuria, Mongolia), and on
the Czech Legion in Siberia. War Department records include the following record groups:
Historical files of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in Siberia, 1918-20, M
917, 1 1 rolls, descriptive pamphlet is available. These historical files contain: important
reports relating to the activities to the AEF in Vladivostok, Shkotovo, and the Suchan
Mines during 1919; English translations of Russian, Japanese, and Chinese newspa-
pers published in or near Asiatic Russia; accounts of strikes by railroad and mine
workers and partisan guerrilla activity in Shkotovo and Suchan Mines districts during
1919; and reports of offices in the AEF.

Historical information relating to military posts and other installations, 1 700-1900, M
661, 8 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. Information derives from a 27-volume
"Outline Index of Military Forts and Stations," of the U.S. Army's Adjutant General's
office. There is reference to U.S. installations in the Philippines and the Pacific Ocean.
Official Published Documents to Insular Possessions of the United States including
the Philippines, 1876-1906, M 24, 3 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. The docu-
ments cover the entire period of the American military governments in the Philippine
Islands as well as the early years of civil government. The Bureau of Insular Affairs was
created in the War Department in 1898 to administer the civil affairs of possessions
acquired as a result of the Spanish-American War. During the early years of its
existence the Bureau made a comprehensive collection of all reports, hearings, acts,
and other relevant printed matter from governmental sources relating to the Philippine
Islands in addition to some materials relating to Alaska and Hawaii. These documents
were made part of the Bureau's library.

One final collection of War Department-Related records on East Asia in the Archives
branch is: Records of Nazi Cultural and Research Institutions, and Records Pertaining to
Axis Relations and Interests in the Far East 1933-45, T 82, 550 rolls, descriptive pamphlet
available. There are files pertaining to economic, military, and cultural relations with
Japan, the Pacific islands, and China, especially its Shandong Province. These records
were captured at the end of World War II and microfilmed by American officials.
Records of the United States Exploring Expedition Under the Command of Lieutenant
Charles Wilkes 1832-42, M 75, 27 rolls. An introduction may be found at the beginning of
the first roll. By an 1836 act of Congress, the President was authorized to "send out a
surveying and exploring expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas." The United
States Exploring Expedition, under the command of Lt. Charles Wilkes, left the United
States in 1 838 and returned in 1 842 after exploring Pacific Islands and the northwest coast
of America. The records include journals and logs kept by officers and men of the
expedition. Preparations for the expedition, activities during the expedition itself, and
courts-martial of certain officers during the expedition are documented.

Records relating to the United States surveying expeditions to the North Pacific, 1852-
1863, M 88, 27 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. These volumes record the actions of
exploring expeditions as they surveyed areas from the South China Sea to the Bering

15

Straits. The expedition made landings in Japan, China, and Pacific Islands and assisted
Commodore Perry with his 1853-54 mission to Japan.
4 Letters received by the Secretary of the Navy from commanding officers of squadrons,
1841-1886, M 89, 300 rolls, descriptive pamphlet available. Papers are arranged by name
of squadron, and thereafter chronologically.

Beginning in 1815 the American Navy was divided into six permanent squadrons: the
Mediterranean Squadron, the West India Squadron, the Pacific Squadron, the Brazil
Squadron, the East India Squadron, and the Home Squadron. All of these except the West
India Squadron were still in existence in 1841, when the Navy first filed separately the
letters received by the Secretary of the Navy from commanding officers of squadrons. In
1866 the Pacific Squadron was divided into the North Pacific and the South Pacific
Squadrons, while the Asiatic Squadron had been established in 1865. The letters from
commanding officers relate to operations in wartime, negotiations of treaties, observations
of military institutions and affairs in foreign countries, and personnel matters. Significant
events documented in these letters include Perry's 1853-54 mission to Japan. The
squadrons concerned with Asia and the Pacific and the dates of the letters from their
commanding officers are: East India Squadron, February 26, 1841 -December 7, 1861;
Pacific Squadron, December 30, 1841 -June 19, 1866; North Pacific Squadron, May 26,
1866- June 25, 1869; South Pacific Squadron, June 31, 1866-May 27, 1869; Pacific
Station, June 26, 1869-August 13, 1872; North Pacific Station, September 23, 1872-April
30, 1 878; South Pacific Station, September 1 6, 1 872-April 1 9, 1 878; Pacific Station, July 9,
1 878-November 11,1 886; and Asiatic Squadron, August 1 , 1 865-November 24, 1 885.

16

History of the Chinese in
Savannah, Georgia

GEORGE B. PRUDEN, JR.'

Over two hundred and fifty years ago James Oglethorpe led more
than a hundred people from England to establish Georgia. On Febru-
ary 12, 1733, they reached the Savannah River and shortly after-
wards began clearing trees and building houses. Savannah, as well
as Georgia, therefore celebrated its semiquincentennial anniversary
in 1 983. Savannah's numerous ethnic groups Jewish, Afro-Ameri-
can, Native American, German, Greek, Irish, Italian and English
commemorated their considerable contributions to the political, eco-
nomic, social, and cultural life of the city. Another ethnic group, the
Chinese, have lived continuously in Georgia's first city for just over a
century and have also contributed to its life and diversity, but they
have done so quietly. In order to provide a more complete picture of
Savannah's history, the purpose of this article is to examine the
Chinese community in one of the nation's most historical cities. Doing
so will provide a more complete picture of Savannah's ethnic mosaic.

Savannah's reputation for beauty may in part be due to Chinese
influence. Oglethorpe, who personally laid out the original plan for
Savannah, may have been trying to pattern it after Beijing (Peking),
the capital of China.1 In both cities a series of parks and squares were
placed in a regular pattern to interrupt the boring repetition of rectan-
gular blocks formed by straight streets intersecting at right angles.

*Professor Pruden teaches East Asian history at Armstrong State College, Savannah,
Georgia. In 1977 he received a Ph.D. in international studies from The American University,
where his dissertation was on "Issachar Jacox Roberts and American Diplomacy in China
During the Taiping Rebellion."

17

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These maps appeared in Laura Palmer Bell's "A New Theory on the Plan of Savannah,"
The Georgia Historical Quarterly 48 (June 1964), pp. 159-60, with these captions: "A
tracing by Stephen P. Bond of the first four squares laid out by Oglethorpe in 1733.
Shown in the Deputy Surveyor General Thomas Shruder's Resurvey of the Town of
Savannah, 5th day of February 1770. Plan of the New City of Peking by Father Gabriel
Malgalhes S.J. from the Novelle Relations de la Chine, published in Paris in 1688 by C.
Barbin." Used with the permission of Stephen P. Bond and The Georgia Historical
Society.

18

Laura Plamer Bell has amassed a body of circumstantial evidence to
support this thesis, and a comparison of the maps of the two cities will
show the similarity. (See maps accompanying this article.)2 More-
over, chinoiserie was becoming fashionable in Europe in the early
eighteenth century; so it is possible that Oglethorpe, who was known
to consort with the literary figures of his time, brought with him to
Georgia an admiration for Beijing, and laid out a similar city plan for
Savannah.3 Thus, the first Chinese contribution to this city may have
arrived with the earliest settlers and may be one of the historic
features which visitors and residents most admire about Savannah.
Chinese people did not arrive until substantially after Savannah's
establishment in 1733. Although a few Chinese seamen may have
visited Savannah aboard ships, the first documented Chinese visitor
arrived in 1847, just three years after Caleb Cushing negotiated the
first Sino-American treaty. On November 20, 1847, Lin Keng Chiu
(Lin Jingzhou) arrived in Savannah from Xiamen (Amoy) in the
company of a Dr. Cumming.4 Neither the reason for Lin's visit nor
how long he stayed is known. A week after his arrival he was taken by
Dr. Cumming to visit some friends in the home of J.B. Reid, where Lin
commemorated the event with an inscription in Chinese and English.
"I saw those kind friends," he wrote, "and was very much pleased
with them, especially the nice ladies."5 For the remainder of the
nineteenth century, connections between China and Savannah were
more incidental than substantive. John Elliott Ward, a mayor of
Savannah during the 1 850s, became United States Minister to China.
He was appointed by President James Buchanan in 1858 to ex-
change ratifications of the Treaty of Tientsin. (See Gabard's article
on Ward in this volume.) Ward had never been to China, nor had he
any previous diplomatic experience, yet he was aware of that East
Asian nation and conditions there. One of his good friends was the
Episcopal bishop of Savannah, whose sister was married to the
bishop of the American Episcopal Church in China. Ward also knew
ships' captains and American naval officers who had been active in
Western Pacific and Chinese ports. Ward travelled for part of his
journey aboard the flagship of the United States Asiatic squadron,
commanded by his friend and Savannah native Commodore Josiah
Tattnall, who broke American neutrality to give aid to the belea-
guered British force at the Dagu forts. Tattnall coined the phrase:

19

"Blood is thicker than water."6 Ward returned to Washington shortly
before the U.S. Civil War in 1861 . When war broke out, Ward sided
with the Confederacy and returned to Savannah. He brought with him
some Chinese fireworks, which he gave to a friend, who set them off
on his plantation to the delight of his guests.7

The foregoing establish the fact that prior to any Chinese coming to
Savannah to live, the city had some, albeit tenuous, links to China.
The elite of Savannah appear to have kept up with current events
through churchmen and through kinsmen like Ward and Tattnall.
Upper class Savannahians thought themselves cosmopolitan as a
result. Savannah was moreover already becoming an ethnically
diverse city. Jews had lived in Savannah since the 1730s and a
synagogue has been in continuous operation there since 1735.
Large numbers of Irish and smaller numbers of immigrants from
other European countries made up about half the population of
Savannah by 1860. Yet no clearly defined anti-foreign prejudice was
discernible. Know-Nothingism had appeared in the 1850s, but had
little impact on local politics.8 When the first Chinese arrived in
Savannah, they were met with tolerance and curiosity, not hostility.

From 1785, when three stranded seamen inadvertently became
the first Chinese residents of the east coast of the United States, until
the late 1840s, the total number of Chinese in this country never
amounted to more than a few dozen.9 Being an east coast port,
Savannah did not experience the waves of Chinese immigration that
followed the discovery of gold in California and which brought over
41,000 Chinese by 1854. Prejudice against them arose quickly in
San Francisco and other west coast areas where they were concen-
trated.10

Right after the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution, some Southerners contemplated
bringing in Chinese laborers as a cheap source of labor to replace
freed slaves. (See Brown and Ganschow's and Beatty's articles in
this volume on Georgia Chinese outside Savannah. Brown and
Ganschow indicated that a number of Chinese were brought to
Augusta to dig a canal, and they became the first Chinese to live in
Georgia.) The 1870 U.S. Census is the first one that places any
Chinese in the state.11 (See Appendix for Census data on Chinese
residents).

20

Savannah's first Chinese resident was William Ah Sang, who
arrived in September 1872. He visited the newspaper office in native
dress to announce his arrival as a tea merchant and impressed a
reporter as much by his novelty as by his dignified manner and fluent
English. Although he was described as "converted to the faith and a
member of Christ Church," the headline read "The Heathen Ch-
inee."12 He evidently did not remain in Savannah, for no further
reference to him appears, and the 1880 census did not enumerate
any Chinese in Savannah or Chatham County.

It was during the late 1870s that prejudice against Chinese in
California reached a fever pitch, and many of them moved to other
parts of the United States to find a more hospitable environment.13
This internal migration probably accounts for the arrival of the first
permanent Chinese settlers in Savannah. According to the daughter
of one of these early Chinese residents, among the reasons for them
to choose Savannah, was that "some were reminded of their beloved
Guangzhou (Canton) by the Savannah harbor and the green land-
scape and wonderful climate."14

The first Chinese to make Savannah his permanent home arrived
about 1881 and opened the Sing Wing hand laundry on one of the
major downtown streets. He followed the pattern set by other Chi-
nese in the United States who found a ready clientele for hand
laundries. These self-contained businesses did not compete with
white labor, as laundry had traditionally been done in the home by
slaves, servants, or female members of the family. Most of the
Chinese who set up these laundries were from the rural areas of
southeastern China. They knew little English, were uneducated, and
lacked the skills needed to engage in the kinds of businesses already
established by the existing population. By long hours of hard work
these foreign entrepreneurs carved out a niche for themselves in the
business life of Savannah. Other Chinese who came during the
1880s also opened laundries, and by 1890 there were eight of them
listed in the Savannah City Directory. One Chinese opened a curio
shop in 1890 but soon went out of business and moved away.15

Almost all of the Chinese who came to Savannah during the latter
half of the nineteenth century were male and either single or sepa-
rated from their families. Very few Chinese women left their home-
land for the United States. Between 1848 and 1868 only three per

21

cent of the Chinese arriving in San Francisco were female, and this
percentage barely increased after the initial period of immigration. At
least two Chinese females were in Savannah during the 1880s, but
neither stayed very long. One of them worked in a Chinese laundry,
was prosecuted for vagrancy by her employer, and despite being a
woman was sentenced to three months on the chain gang.16

The bachelor Chinese laundrymen understandably were homesick
for their native country and families. One of them reminisced to his
family that they stuck together and would walk down to the harbor in
the evening and watch the ships plying the river by moonlight.17 The
pathos of their situation has been captured in a poem by Gerald
Chan Sieg, a daughter of one of these early Chinese laundrymen in
Savannah:

LAUNDRYMAN
If I could hear once more
The call of dark winged birds across the fields
Of rice and slim young bamboo,

If I could see once more

A crane with yellow legs so straight

Among cool water grasses,

If I could touch again

Her hands whose fingers in their sleeve of scarlet

Are softly curled and gentle,

My soul would be content,

O gods,

To iron away eternity.18

The only record that exists for some of them are newspaper
accounts of their brushes with the law. Under the leadline: "ARREST
OF THE HEATHEN CHINEE," the Savannah Morning News reported
the apprehension of two laundrymen for possession of stolen goods.
One of them, Lu Chung (Loo Chang), was "the man who married a
white woman at Waynesboro some time ago, and afterwards was run
out of that city."19 (See Beatty's article in this journal on the Way-

22

nesboro incident). Another incident involving Chinese was reported
with a touch of amusement. Hung Lee brought charges against
Charlie Lee for failing to repay $100. The preliminary trial produced
an interesting culture clash. Hung Lee refused to take the Christian
oath, and Charlie Lee, claiming to be a "Sunday School boy," refused
to participate in a Chinese-style oath. This required that a chicken's
head be cut off in the presence of both parties, whereupon they
would agree to suffer the same fate if they did not tell the truth. The
impasse was not resolved, and the judge dismissed the charge for
lack of evidence. It was clear from the account that the newspaper
reporter believed Charlie Lee was taking advantage of the situation.
Charlie, he noted, was known as a sharp dealer and was probably
hiding behind his Christian affiliation to avoid being found guilty.20

Yet not all the references to the Chinese in the local newspaper
were derogatory either in tone or substance. The Morning News
reported the naturalization of three Chinese in August 1888 and
noted that Savannah now had four Chinese citizens.21 A Chinese
laundryman claimed to have been assaulted by two white men. Sang
Lung positively identified one of his white attackers, who was ar-
rested and put in jail despite an alibi and the police chief's belief in his
innocence.21

How deep or widespread anti-Chinese prejudice was in Savannah
around the turn of the century is hard to determine from United States
Census data. Although the number of Chinese in Savannah had
almost tripled between 1890 and 1900, as shown in the Appendix,
even then there were fewer than four dozen in all. A clearer indication
may be the city ordinance prohibiting the operation of opium dens in
1 895. Aldermen voted unanimously to allow its second reading at the
same meeting in which it was introduced and passed. About a
decade later, when the first Chinese children born in Savannah
reached school age, they were not allowed to attend the white
schools. Local education officials may have strictly interpretated the
1877 Georgia constitution: "Separate schools shall be provided for
the white and colored races." Only in the mid-1 920s were Chinese
children allowed to attend white schools in Savannah.23

Toward the end of the 1890s the character of the small Chinese
community in Savannah began to change. Chung Ta-p'eng, who also
used his boyhood nickname, Chan, had arrived on April 6, 1889.

23

The first Chinese family of Savannah: father, Robert Chung Chan; mother, Cecelia Ann
Lee, holding Robert Earl; behind her right shoulder is Ah'ge (Archie); at extreme left is
Gerald (nee Geraldine); to her left is Sin-fah; and in the right foreground is Sandor. A
sixth child was born later. Used by permission of Gerald Chan Sieg.

24

That night the Independent Presbyterian church, a prominent Savan-
nah landmark, burned in a spectacular fire. Seeing the blaze from the
Sing Wing Laundry, he interpreted this event as a sign that he should
oin that church. He began attending it once it was rebuilt and
Decame a member. Upon baptism he was given the Christian name
Robert and entered on the church roll as Robert Chung Chan be-
:ause the clerk did not realize that his Chinese surname was Chung.
Rather than cause any embarrassment, he accepted Chan as the
surname for himself and his family.24

Few Savannahians were aware that this dignified and unassuming
/oung Chinese was an ardent anti-Qing dynasty patriot and had left
3hina to escape punishment as a revolutionary. He had received a
:lassical Chinese education and supported the Chinese republican
'evolutionary movement then led by Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen).
He traveled around the southeastern United States soliciting funds
for the Chinese revolution from his fellow countrymen and forwarded
tie money to China's republican revolutionaries. After his marriage in
1897, and especially once the first of his six children was born, he
/vas not able to travel so widely for the cause he cherished. (See
Dhoto of Chan family accompanying this article.) After trying without
success to operate a farm and a restaurant he was taken in as a
Dartner of Willie Chin & Co., a Chinese laundry.25

By 1900 the number of hand laundries, of which there had been
sight in 1890, totaled fifteen.26 Among the new arrivals by 1900 were
two clansmen of Robert Chung Chan from his native village in
Kwangtung Province who spelled their surname "Jung." When they
also brought wives about 1 900 and started their families, the Chinese
community took on a different character. Robert Chung Chan ad-
vised his kinsmen and the other newly arrived Chinese to live apart
from each other. He understood the distrust of Chinatowns that
Caucasians felt in San Francisco and New York. "Too many hatchet
men out west," he told them. "Too many tongs [secret, frequently
warlike societies] in New York. If we live apart, they will like us better
and not be afraid."27 Robert Chung Chan, probably more than anyone
9lse, prevented a Chinatown from developing in Savannah.

He also did what he could to improve the reputation of Chinese in
Savannah. Always dressed impeccably in up-to-date western-style
clothes, as he was when photographed with his family, he carried

25

himself with quiet dignity and treated everyone with courtesy. He was
one of the original members of the Chinese Sunday School class
begun in 1897 at the Independent Presbyterian Church, but he did
not like being set apart from the rest of the members. After years of
faithful attendance and service to the regular Men's Bible Class of
that church, he was elected honorary president and retained that
office until his death in 1953.28

Robert Chung Chan did not try to enhance his own reputation apart
from, or at the expense of, his countrymen. He was, in fact, their
acknowledged leader. By 1920 he helped organize and held high
office in the Savannah branch of Chinese Freemasions or "Chee
Kong Tong," and attended its 1921 National Convention in New York
City. He also helped establish Savannah's Chinese Benevolent As-
sociation in 1945. Newly arriving Chinese sought his advice and
counsel, and some he helped financially to get started in business.29
These activities were quietly done; he never sought publicity for
himself or for Chinese. He wanted all of them to be accepted as an
integral part of Savannah life without drawing attention to them-
selves. When news of the successful Chinese revolution came in
October 1911, the three families, now including three children, cele-
brated quietly. In later years, as older Chinese died, dignified funeral
processions out to Laurel Grove Cemetery would bear their remains
to be buried temporarily until their bones could be shipped back to
China for interment in ancestral graves. After church on Sundays
they usually gathered for a big meal and a game of mah-jongg.

Occasionally the noise would cause neighbors to wonder what was
going on, especially when they sang Chinese songs and had some-
one to play the erhu, a shrill, two-stringed violin which harmonizes
well with falsetto male voices. Celebrations of Chinese New Year
called for joyous unrestraint. After a lavish meal, fireworks lit up the
sky and firecrackers echoed through the streets and alleys.30

These gatherings continued as long as the number of Chinese in
Savannah remained low enough so that they could all meet together
in one home and the bachelors could join the few families as surro-
gate uncles of the small children. Having declined in number to 34 in
1910 perhaps due to natural attrition by the deaths of the older
bachelors there were only 38 Chinese in Savannah by 1920. In the
following decade a sharper increase occurred as the oldest ones of

26

:he second generation reached maturity, married, and had children of
their own. Not all of the second generation learned to speak Chinese.
Robert Chung Chan and his wife did not speak Chinese within their
lome. And the second generation began to develop interests, friends,
and concerns that made the earlier closely knit Chinese community
ess cohesive. During the 1930s the number of Savannah's U.S.-
Dorn Chinese surpassed the foreign-born total for the first time, and
Dy 1940 the ratio of U.S. -born to foreign-born Chinese was almost
.wo to one.31

International events in East Asia during the early 1930s made
Savannahians more aware of China. When C.C. Wang, First Secre-
tary of the Chinese Legation in Washington, visited Savannah in
Janaury 1 933 just for a vacation, reporters went to his hotel to gain an
nterview from him, but without success. The account of his arrival in
Savannah and seclusion from the press also noted that the Chinese
:ommunity in Savannah had contributed liberally to a fund for the
defense of Shanghai, which Japan had attacked in 1932.32 In Febru-
ary 1933 the League of Women Voters had as its speaker Chin
Meng, Associate Director of the China Institute in America, at a public
iieeting concerned with Sino-Japanese conflict.33

The Chinese in Savannah may have become more diverse in
outlook by this time, but they never denied their ethnic heritage.
Some of the Chinese wives began meeting informally in the mid
1930s in a group they called the Hen Club. Recognizing the need for
a more structured organization to keep the Chinese together, they
oersuaded their husbands to see what could be done. In 1945,
shortly before the end of World War II, the Chinese Benevolent
Association was formed. Lat Woo, a businessman, was elected
president, and the seventy-five-year-old Robert Chung Chan its first
tfice president. Two children of the latter also were elected as charter
officers. The long-range purpose of this association was "to bring
Chinese in Savannah into closer cultural relationship not only with
one another but with the other peoples of this city."34

The number of Chinese in Savannah declined after 1930, pre-
sumably due to the demise of the elderly among the first generation.
The fact that U.S. -born Chinese in the United States surpassed the
number of foreign born Chinese in Savannah tends to support this
assumption. New Chinese immigrants came to Savannah during this

27

decade and an even greater increase occurred during the 1950s, but
they were not the bachelor laborers who had come from farming
villages. China had changed a great deal, and the new immigrants in
Savannah reflected those changes. They came from the bustling port
cities, where education was no longer considered the preserve of the
wealthy classes. Many of them went into various kinds of businesses.
Chinese restuarants and gift shops predominated. And because
Robert Chung Chan had established the pattern that Chinese should
be dispersed throughout the city, still no Chinatown developed in
Savannah. According to one Savannah-born member of the Chinese
community, only two Chinese lived on adjoining property. Two mem-
bers of the same family bought lots that shared a common rear
property line, but each one faced onto a different street. The fifty-year
presence of Chinese in Savannah also facilitated the entry of new
families and the establishment of new businesses. Some new immi-
grants married into established Chinese families and thus were able
to build upon the standing in the community that their in-laws already
enjoyed.35

A recently deceased citizen of the Savannah area, T.S. Chu,
served as an example of a Chinese immigrant to Savannah who may
be considered typical in terms of his career pattern and upward
mobility. Chu first came to this country to represent his native prov-
ince at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933. Instead of returning to
China, he stayed to see more of the United States and opened a gift
shop in Coral Gables, Florida. One evening a stranger appeared at
his shop. Casual conversation revealed that he had no place to sleep
because he had forgotten to make hotel reservations. Mr. Chu let him
sleep on his bed while he took the chair on the porch. The stranger
repaid Chu's great kindness by inviting him to come to Savannah
Beach, Georgia, where he lived, and open a gift shop in a building he
owned. Chu did so, and began the thriving business that bears his
name. Shortly afterwards he married Mae Jung, a daughter of one of
the first Chinese families in Savannah. His shop remained open long
hours every day and stocked anything customers wanted to buy. He
developed a loyal clientele that included many celebrities. He liked to
boast that Dwight Eisenhower was a regular customer whenever he
visited Savannah Beach. Because business was so good, he had to
enlarge his shop and later built and moved into a larger store. It is

28

low the anchor of a small shopping center he helped develop as part
)f a plan to revitalize the commercial life of the resort. He considered
)ut rejected a campaign for mayor of the town, but was called "Mr.
Savannah Beach." His business interests grew to include two other
jift shops in Savannah, and members of his family own several
convenience stores. He was quick to credit the friendliness of people
or his success but also liked to point out the opportunities that exist
n the United States for a poor immigrant to do well.36

A less-typical Chinese who also made a name for himself in
Savannah was Dr. K.C. Wu. After a Chinese classical education he
:ame to the United States and earned an undergradute degree and
/vent to Yale for a doctorate, which he received in 1926. Upon
-eturning to China he embarked upon a twenty-five-year career as an
official in the Nationalist government. He served as Mayor of
Chongqing (Chungking) during World War II, when it was China's
capital, and of Shanghai from 1 945 to 1 949. (See Krebs' article in this
volume about the intricacies of modern Chinese politics). Jiang Jieshi
(Chiang Kai-shek) named him Governor of Taiwan, and his reform-
minded stewardship in that position gained international recognition.
Time featured him on its cover of August 7, 1 950, and perceptively
described him as "a little too successful for his own good. [He] may
arouse the jealousy of old-line officials."37 The Time reporter did not
foresee that Wu would arouse the jealousy both of Jiang and of
Jiang's son, the subsequent leader of the Chinese Nationalists on
Taiwan. "If I had stayed there," Wu told an American reporter in 1 972,
'there would have been no chance for [Jiang's son] to succeed his
father."38 Wu decided to leave Taiwan after an attempt was made on
his life that he believes Jiang ordered.39 He moved to the United
States and began a second career as a writer and lecturer in Chi-
cago. In 1965 he accepted an invitation to teach at Armstrong State
College in Savannah, where his courses were so popular that stu-
dents and alumni raised money to pay his salary so he could teach
for three additional years after he reached the mandatory retirement
age.40 He wrote several books. The Lane of Eternal Stability is a
fictionalized account of the Chinese revolutionary movement in the
early twentieth century.41 His last work was The Chinese Heritage: A
New and Provocative View of the Origins of Chinese Society.42 Until
his death in 1984, he engaged in research, and his wife is an

29

accomplished painter in traditional Chinese style. Both became known
to Savannahians through periodic feature articles in the local news-
papers.43

Probably the best-known member of Savannah's Chinese commu-
nity is a native daughter, Gerald Chan Sieg. She was born to Mr. and
Mrs. Robert Chung Chan in 1911 and christened Geraldine. She
"simply hated" that name. She shortened it to Gerald, she explained,
because "I knew early on that boys were considered better than girls,
so if I couldn't be a boy, I'd at least have a boy's name."44 Chinese
children were still not allowed to attend the white public schools, so
her early education was provided by private teachers or in private
schools. When she reached junior high school age, the local school
board changed its ruling and she attended white public schools until
her graduation.45 Her father wrote poetry and she also developed an
interest in this form of expression at an early age. Her high school
English teacher urged her to submit one of her poems to the Poetry
Society of Georgia, and it won a prize. She was invited to join the
society and has been a member ever since 1928.

Her poems have won numerous awards in the Poetry Society. She
has been published in The New York Times, The New York Herald-
Tribune, Atlantic Monthly, and Asia, as well in children's magazines
such as Child Life, Jack and Jill, and Playmates. In recognition of her
lifetime service" to the Poetry Society, her fellow members estab-
lished an annual prize in her name. Only one other member was so
honored during his lifetime, and that was Conrad Aiken.46

In addition to "Laundryman," quoted earlier, many of her poems
reflect her Chinese heritage. She has also written several articles
and short books about her early life in Savannah as the daughter of a
Chinese family. Her Chinese Christmas Box captures the seasonal
spirit of generosity and the cultural heritage of China that Robert
Chung Chan passed on to his six children.47 The story has been
adapted into a children's Christmas play as yet unpublished that
has been performed twice in Savannah.48 Through her poetry and
prose, Gerald Chan Sieg, a daughter of Chinese immigrants, has
written about the first and second generations of her people in
Savannah. Those who read her works are less likely to think of
Chinese-Americans as stereotypes either positive or negative but
as a people whose lives are intimately linked with their own.

30

As of the 1 980 census there are more than two hundred citizens of
Chinese descent living in Savannah a small but significant part of
ne population. None of the hand laundries still operates, but Chinese
ire nevertheless represented in other traditional trades, such as
hirteen restaurants, seven grocery stores, and at least three gift
ihops. In addition, Savannah's Chinese citizens are represented in
ne professions as physicians, engineers and teachers, one of whom
vas selected as "Teacher of the Year" in 1975 by the public school
system. There are a career Army officer, a chemist-photographer, a
)ostal clerk, writers, musicians, actors, and playwrights. Many Savan-
lah Chinese are housewives and students.49

During the semiquincentenary year of Savannah and Georgia in
983, much was made of the hardships endured by the earliest
lettlers. Yet not all of them arrived without some idea of what they
vould face. A contemporary of Oglethorpe recorded what the Trus-
ees told prospective English settlers:

They must expect to go through great hardships in the beginning,
ind use great industry and labor, in order to acquire afterwards a
:omfortable subsistence for themselves and families. The country
vas hot in summer, and there were flies in abundance, and thunder-
storms were frequent in that season. Sicknesses were dangerous. If
hey were temperate and industrious, they might establish them-
selves and families in a comfortable way upon lands of their own.50

The Chinese who began arriving in Savannah a century and a half
ater came without any foreknowledge of what to expect and they
aced additional obstacles. Few of them could speak English when
hey arrived and the prevailing culture was far different from their
lative way of life. Most of the bachelor laundrymen kept to them-
selves as long as they lived there; but the ones who brought or
established families put down roots and, with the frequent assistance
)f Robert Chung Chan, joined in the life of the city. Their descen-
iants and the later arrivals are now respected members of the
Savannah community. They were unaware that they were fulfilling
Dglethorpe's hopes for the kind of settlers he expected to make
Savannah and Georgia thrive: "What various misfortunes may re-
iuce the rich, the industrious, to the danger of a prison, to a moral
certainty of starving! These are the people that may relieve them-
selves and strengthen Georgia, by reporting thither."51

31

Oglethorpe did not envision Georgia as a haven for debtors, but as
a place where potentially productive people buffeted by circum-
stances beyond their control could engage their energies and skills
and contribute to its success.52 He did not foresee that his hopes
would apply equally to the Chinese of the next two centuries. Yet by
their industry and perseverance, they have indeed established "them-
selves and families in a comfortable way upon lands of their own."

APPENDIX

Census Data on Chinese Residents of Savannah*

percent

Chatham

Year

number

change

males(a)

female(a)

County

Georgia

1870

0

0

1

1880

0

0

17

1890

15(b)

15

108

1900

44

193

28

(of voting age)

51

204

1910

34

-23

35

233

1920

38

12

38

211

1930

50

32

50

253

1940

40(b)

-20

24

16

40

326

1950

46

15

31

15

69

511

1960

118

157

59

59

128(c)

636

1970

147

25

72

75

189(c)

1584

1980

220

50

340

4324

'Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1870-1980 Censuses.

a. Listed if breakdown by sex was provided in Census Reports.

b. Separate figures not given for Savannah in 1890 Census; number given for Chatham
County also used for Savannah.

c. Reported by Standard Metropolitcan Statistical Area rather than by county. Savannah's
SMSA includes but is larger than Chatham County. Data has been gathered or derived
from decennial Census Reports of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, specifically those
volumes subtitled "Population" or "Characteristics of the Population."

NOTES

James Edward Oglethorpe to the Trustees from the Camp near Savannah, February 10,
1733, in [Benjamin Martyn], An Account Showing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia, in
America, From Its First Establishment, reprinted in Collections of the Georgia Historical

32

Society 2 (1842), p. 284. See also George White, Statistics of the State of Georgia
(Savannah: W. Thorn Williams, reprinted 1972), p. 47.

2 Laura Palmer Bell, "A New Theory on the Plan of Savannah," The Georgia Historical
Quarterly 48 (June 1964), pp. 147-165.

3 Richard C. Boys, "Oglethorpe and the Muses," The Georgia Historical Quarterly 31 (March
1947), pp. 19-29.

4 Georgian (Savannah), November 20, 1847.

5 Lin's original inscription is in the possession of Gerald Chan Sieg, with whose permission
it is used.

6 William M. Gabard, "John Elliott Ward and the Treaty of Tientsin," West Georgia Studies in
the Social Sciences 1 1 (1972), pp. 28-29, 33-34.

7 Morning News (Savannah), March 18, 1929.

8 Herbert Weaver, "Foreigners in Ante-Bellum Savannah," The Georgia Historical Quarterly
37 (March 1953), pp. 1, 10-12.

9 Ruthanne Lum McCunn, An Illustrated History of the Chinese in America (San Francisco:
Design Enterprises, 1979), pp. 10, 24; William J. Bromwell, History of Immigration to the
United States.. .September 30, 1819 to December 31, 1855 (New York: Radfield, 1 856),
passim.

10 Daniel Cleveland to J. Ross Brown, U.S. Minister to China, San Francisco, July 27, 1868,
in American Diplomatic and Public Papers: The United States and China, Series II, The
United States, China, and Imperial Rivalries, 1861-1893, (Wilmington, Del.,: Scholarly Re-
sources, Inc., 1979), pp. 1-2.

11 Catherine Brown, "Chinese in the South: 1865-1980," paper presented to the Southeast-
ern Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Boone, North Carolina, January 21 ,
1983; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census: The Statistics of the Population of the
United States, I (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872), p. 22.

12 Morning News, October 1 , 1872.

13 McCunn, p. 82.

14 Morning News, January 1 5, 1 950.

15 Savannah City Directory, 1882; McCunn, p. 63; Morning News, July 9, 1891 .

16 Morning News, June 4, 1884, January 15, 1950; Cleveland, p. 1; References to other
Chinese women in Morning News, February 21 and July 17, 1891.

17 Morning News, January 15, 1950.

18 Yearbook of the Poetry Society of Georgia, 1933-1934, used with the permission of the
author.

19 Morning News, October 22, 1884.

20 Morning News, February 21 , 1 891 .

21 Morning News, September 1 , 1888.

22 Morning News, July 14, 15, and 16, 1895.

23 Minutes of the City Council of Savannah, Georgia, April 24, 1895, p. 151; Statement of
Gerald Chan Sieg to the author, February 3, 1983.

24 Lowry Axley, Holding Aloft the Torch: A History of the Independent Presbyterian Church of
Savannah, Georgia (Savannah: Pigeonhole Press, 1958), p. 45; Interview with Gerald
Chan Sieg, December 29, 1982.

25 Sieg interview, February 3, 1983; Gerald Chan Sieg, "Georgia's Chinese Pioneers," The
Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine, March 7, 1 965, p. 20.

26 Savannah City Directory, 1900.

27 Sieg, "Georgia's Chinese Pioneers," p. 22.

28 Axley, p. 136.

29 Morning News and Evening Press (Savannah), June 11,1 953; Sieg interview, December

33

29, 1982.

30 Sieg, "Georgia's Chinese Pioneers," p. 22.

31 U.S. Census Report, 1940.

32 Morning News, Janaury 22, 1933.

33 Morning News, February 10 and 16, 1933.

34 Evening Press, January 2, 1945; Sieg interview, December 29, 1982.

35 Sieg interview, February 3, 1983.

36 News-Press (Savannah), October 31 , 1971 .

37 Time, August 7, 1950, p. 25.

38 News-Press, July 2, 1972.

39 News-Press, May 2, 1971 .

40 News-Press, July 2, 1972.

41 (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1962).

42 (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1982).

43 News-Press, July 28, 1974, and December 19, 1982, in addition to those already cited.

44 Morning News, November 5, 1978.

45 Sieg interview, February 3, 1983.

46 Morning News, October 30, 1 936; January 8, 1 937; October 6, 1 937; November 1 7, 1 937;
August 29, 1948; November 5, 1978.

47 Second edition (n.p.: The August Press, 1970).

48 Sieg interview February 3, 1983.

49 Figures extracted from the Yellow pages of the Savannah Telephone Directory, March,
1982; Morning News, January 15, 1950; Sieg interview, February 3, 1983.

50 Francis Moore, A Voyage to Georgia Begun in the Year 1735 (London, 1744), reprinted
in Collections of The Georgia Historical Society 1 (1840), p. 84.

51 [James Edward Oglethorpe], A New and Accurate Account of the Provinces of South
Carolina and Georgia (London, 1733), reprinted in Collections of the Georgia Historical
Society 1: (1840), p. 56.

52 Albert B. Saye, "Was Georgia a Debtor Colony?" The Georgia Historical Quarterly 24
(December 1940), pp. 323-41.

34

The Augusta, Georgia, Chinese:
1865-1980

CATHERINE BROWN AND THOMAS GANSCHOW*

The purpose of this study is to examine the historical and socio-
economic developmental patterns of the Augusta Chinese from their
initial settlement in the late 1860s to 1980, the most recent year for
which census data is available, and to explain the variations which
have taken place over time. Strictly defined this is a study in historical
urban social geography and involves the analysis of the changing
patterns of a small urban ethnic group functioning as a social and
economic unit within a larger biracial population.

A survey of the data and literature pertaining to the Chinese in the
United States has suggested that the Chinese in Augusta share
similar histories and characteristics with other Chinese groups south
of the Mason-Dixon line and east of and including Texas. However,
the southern groups of Chinese differ from Chinese in other regions
of the United States. The literature also showed a strong bias toward
interpreting the history and characteristics of Chinese and other
ethnic minorities as largely the products of racial prejudice and
economic forces operating inside and outside of the group. These

*Catherine Brown received her B.A. in geography from the University of Tennessee and an
M.A. in geography from the University of Georgia. She is the author of The Urban South: A
Bibliography (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1989). Professor Ganschow has taught
Chinese and East Asian history at the University of Georgia since 1 969. In 1 971 he received
his Ph.D. in those fields from Indiana University, where he worked under Ssu-yu Teng. His
dissertation topic was: "A Study of Sun Yat-sen's Contacts with the United States Prior to
1922." He has pubished articles in the fields of modern Chinese history and international
relations. The authors wish to thank the Georgia China Council for their support of this project
and members of the Chinese Benevolent Association of Augusta for their cooperation and
encouragement.

35

common themes from the literature provide the direction and theo-
retical basis for this study.

Contrary to what one might believe about early American atti-
tudes toward China and the Chinese, from the earliest available
evidence, Americans rarely seemed impressed with traditional Chi-
nese culture and government.1 Prior to the advent of the first large
scale immigration of Chinese into the U.S. in the mid-1 850s, Ameri-
cans had been educated by accounts of some travelers to China to
believe that the Chinese were a morally debased, biologically inferior
race. This largely negative stereotype surfaced quickly when Ameri-
cans met Chinese face-to-face stateside. The stereotype was acti-
vated by the xenophobia of a growing nativist movement. It was
reinforced by language barriers, cultural differences, and domestic
economic problems, especially labor/management tensions in the
American West.

Chinese began to immigrate to the United States in large numbers
after the establishment of regular transpacific steamer service in
1848. At first, these settlers remained concentrated on the West
Coast, where they were tolerated for a brief period as a source of
cheap railroad, mining, and agricultural labor much needed in a
population-hungry frontier with a rapidly expanding economy. The
boom-town era was short lived, however, and when the region
plunged into a depression, the Chinese found themselves blamed for
many economic and social ills. Racism was rampant and the pres-
ence of foreigners especially foreigners so very different in cus-
toms and appearance as the Chinese was considered divisive.
Some Caucasians in the American West felt that if the West were to
solve its problems it needed a homogenous population with common
origins and goals. By the 1870s they had rallied under the slogan,
"The Chinese must go," a sentiment that was often violently ex-
pressed.2

The Chinese responded to the outbreak of violence in several
ways. Some returned to China while others relocated in other coun-
tries. Those who stayed in the West clustered for safety in larger
cities. The consensus among researchers is that the anonymity of
the city, especially the large city, provided the Chinese an element of
protection they did not have in small towns or work camps. Although
the urban clusters which grew into Chinatowns lost their invisibility,

36

Chinatown itself became a fortress against outside aggression and it
took on a political, social, and economic life of its own. Chinese who
preferred to leave the West but remain in the U.S. began to migrate
eastward. Southern migration was encouraged by a popular move-
ment within the region to secure Chinese contract labor to supple-
ment or replace free black labor. At approximately the time the West
raised the cry, "The Chinese must go!" the South issued an invitation
"Let the Chinamen come."3

Chinese in Georgia

One of the most pressing problems faced by Georgia in the after-
math of the Civil War was the adaptation of a slave labor economy to
a free labor force. Like the rest of the South, Georgia initially resisted
change, preferring to substitute cheap wage labor for slave labor and
rejecting technological innovations which would have eased
agriculture's labor dependency. Also, like the rest of the South,
Georgia did not consider the state's reserves of free blacks as a
potential labor force or at least much of one. In fact, it was widely
thought that "the institution of slavery provided the best system of
labor devised for the negro race," and that blacks would never work
without coercion.4 This opinion was reflected in an 1866 editorial in a
Savannah paper which claimed that the state needed a legal code to
force blacks to work since they had been freed "without the restraints
of intelligence" and would otherwise pass their time in idleness and
vice.5

Black labor had some supporters, but for the most part the general
trend in the state between 1865 and 1880 was toward the promotion
of foreign immigration as a solution to the labor problem. In 1868 a
Columbus paper painted this grim scenario, "[to] crush out the ne-
groes, refuse them employment. Once rid of this obstreperous ele-
ment there will be a tide of immigration that will soon supply our
demand for labor."6 As the state's newspapers encouraged Georgia
to join the southern effort to attract immigrant labor, the blacks began
a major exodus out of northern Georgia and the Piedmont to the
coastal plain with many leaving the state for places offering higher
wages.7 Though the initial labor problem in the state was more
imaginary than real, the shift in the black population created a
genuine labor shortage and many plantations lay idle for lack of help.

In Georgia the idea of importing Chinese coolies to supplement or

37

replace black labor predated the Civil War although no action seems
to have taken place prior to 1865. Immediately after the war, how-
ever, brief items about Chinese labor began appearing in the news.
For example, in November 1 865 a Savannah paper ran a short article
about Chinese labor in the West. The Chinese were said to work for
$5 a month and clothe themselves. "Their masters," the article con-
cluded [not "their employers"], "were expected to supply other neces-
sities."8 By 1 866 the Georgia press was expressing a direct interest in
the use of Chinese labor in the South; for it was generally concluded
the Chinese were "faithful and laborous operatives, who [were] easily
managed" and "admirably suited for the culture of cotton and other
products of the South."9 (See Pruden's and Beatty's articles in this
journal on the labor situation in the South in general, and on Georgia
Chinese living outside of Augusta.)

The Chinese in Augusta

The Augusta Chronicle had its own opinion of using Chinese
coolies as laborers. It was generally negative. Editorials described
the Chinese as "joss worshiping, opium soaked coolies." Space was
also given to print the text of a speech delivered in Ohio in which
Chinese were called "an alien, and inferior and idolotrous race not fit
to become citizens or to enjoy the right of suffrage."10 The Chronicle's
readers responded in turn with their own feelings about the issue.
The majority echoed the opinion of the writer who said, "I am for
Georgians all the while, white or black, but white first all the time [not]
Chinese coolies, half drunk all the time with opium, yellow immigrants
too poor to live at home."11

The failure of the proponents of foreign labor to entice large
numbers of Chinese workers into the state rendered the issue largely
academic in Augusta until 1873, when a construction company en-
gaged to extend the city's canal system announced its intention to
include 200 Chinese laborers in its work crew. It is hardly surprising,
given the previously expressed opinions of the Chronicle, that its
readership raised an immediate objection to the proposal. When it
became clear, however, that the Chinese would be employed despite
the city's objections, the Chronicle resigned itself to the idea. What a
"novelty" to have such a large body of these people in the vicinity,
observed the paper. The Chronicle expected the Chinese would
succeed as in other places.12 On November 4, 1873, when 35 Chi-

38

nese stepped off the train at the Augusta station, Chronicle reporters
joined the crowd of onlookers and met them with what seemed to be,
from the general tone of the ensuing news articles, friendly curiosity.
(See Appendix One through Five on the Chinese population of
Georgia).

The Chronicle's rival, the Constitutionalist, was not as optimistic
about the addition of Chinese to the canal's work force. Along with a
brief note about the arrival of the Chinese, the Constitutionalist chose
to print a lengthy article extracted from a 1871 edition of a Louisiana
paper which told a lurid tale of "unfaithful, sordid, slow, weak, and
(sometimes) murderous" Chinese workers on Louisiana plantations
who were a source of continual disappointment and worry to their
employers. The Constitutionalist also reported that the first Chinese
arrivals were from Kentucky, not Indiana as the Chronicle had men-
tioned, and that the remainder would be coming from Louisiana! The
Chronicle seems to have had no response to this potentially inflam-
matory article and the Constitutionalist dropped the matter.13

For several months after the arrival of the Chinese, articles and
news briefs appeared sporadically in the Chronicle about their prog-
ress on the canal, customs, and personal habits. Their work was
found to be satisfactory. The Chinese were characterized as a sturdy
agreeable lot of young men with a "sameness of appearance," with
"childlike and bland expressions," and somewhat "effeminate" be-
cause of their lack of beards. The Chinese were paid $35.00 a
month, in gold, a salary comparable to the white and black canal
workers', and were reported to have kept their living expenses at
$7.00 a month. "What a glorious thing it would be," hoped the
Chronicle, "if some of us 'outside barbarians' could learn to subsist
on that modest sum."14

But the novelty of the Chinese workers soon wore off; the paper
turned to other topics. Nothing was found in the Chronicle or in any
other source to indicate whether the other 165 Chinese intended for
work on the project ever materialized and there is no evidence that
any of those Chinese who did come actually stayed past the comple-
tion of the canal in 1 875, although the assumption is most often made
by other researchers that the Augusta community originated from a
small group who remained when the work crew disbanded.15 City di-
rectories are missing for that period; so it is not known if any Chinese

39

took up a city residence or entered into any type of business prior to
1 876, when the Chronicle reported that "a geniune Chinaman has es-
tablished a tea store on the south side of Broad Street nearly oppo-
site the Planters Hotel." The tea shop which is indicated was located
in the heart of the city's downtown business district. The following
year a Chinese-operated grocery opened without fanfare in another
Broad Street location.

The Chinese as Small Grocers

By the 1880 census there were 17 Chinese men living in Georgia.
Ten of these Chinese were located in Augusta and all were engaged
in the grocery business. (See Appendix Two on Chinese-owned
laundries and groceries in Augusta.) Those who did not own their
businesses were in the employ of other Chinese. Of the eight Chi-
nese groceries listed in the city directory, most were scattered along
Broad Street in the central business district. Five of the city's Chinese
shared in the family name Loo and at least three of them were
brothers. The Loos were the first Chinese known to enter the grocery
business in the city and for a number of years comprised the Chinese
community's largest clan. The directory also listed one Chinese
grocer as having a partner residing in Charleston, South Carolina. It
would seem that the Chinese in Augusta, just as the Chinese else-
where in the United States, were quick to establish a network of
communications and mutual support systems with the various other
Chinese communities in the surrounding states.16

In 1882 the Chronicle had a great deal to say about a Chinese
Exclusion Bill being debated in Congress. "From present appear-
ances," observed the Chronicle on May 4, "this country has a yellow
elephant on its hands only less portentous and menacing than the
black one was." The editorial then proceeded to relate the "good and
bad features of the Mongolian pest." The good reputation of Chinese
businessmen on the West Coast was mentioned, but the Chinese
practice of polygamy and other "monstrous vices" was highlighted
along with the contempt the Chinese were "known" to have for the
American system of government. "Chinese first, last and all the time,"
said the paper, sneering at the newcomers' national pride and reluc-
tance to become American citizens, adding that "their politeness is
on the surface, and [they] have [been] known to kill a man who owed
them twenty-five cents."17

40

Curiously enough, the Chronicle cheered the passage of the 1882
Exclusion Bill but reported the marriages of two Chinese men to
white women that year with no adverse reaction. The weddings
aroused some interest, but the couples received the paper's usual
good wishes for newlyweds. The events which transpired in Way-
nesboro the following year also seem to have passed Augusta by
without much effect. (See Beatty's article in this journal on the
Waynesboro incident.) The Waynesboro episode involved the "Ku
Kluxing" of the town's two Chinese citizens out of the fear they too
would seduce white women into marriage. The incident prompted the
introduction of a bill in the Georgia House of Representatives to
prohibit Chinese/white marriages and only served to hurry the wed-
ding plans of several more Chinese men and white women in Au-
gusta. The Chronicle was silent. All in all it seemed as though the
paper was hostile toward Chinese in general but tolerant of the local
community.

In this period, the newspaper's attitude may not have been wholly
indicative of the attitudes of the white community. In 1885 there was
a movement among white merchants to petition the city council to
deny the Chinese business licenses. "The Pig-tail is ordered to go
periodically but he remains, just as the pig does," read one blurb in
the Chronicle not exactly in keeping with its usual benevolent air. A
few days later it reported that "the City Council stands up to the
Celestials. John Chinaman need not go."18 The Council issued a
statement that whoever" conformed to the ordinances of the city and
paid his licenses has as much right to do legitimate business in
Augusta as [does] a representative of any other nation."19 Unfortu-
nately for the Chinese, the Council's decision did not serve to close
the issue.

Augusta's white merchants continued their protest and much to the
distress of the Chinese, the newcomers became a popular topic of
discussion in 1886. Augusta's antagonism toward its Chinese citi-
zens corresponded with the mood of the country. The Northeast was
becoming disturbed about its growing Chinatowns as numbers of the
Chinese who had settled in the United States prior to the passage of
the Exclusion Bill continued their movement out of the Western
states. California held its first anti-Chinese "convention" in 1886, and
in February of that year a mob of Seattle's white citizens attacked

41

that city's Chinese quarter, driving some Chinese away and killing
those who failed to escape. Augusta's merchants renewed their
petition to the City Council, complaining that there was no way they
could compete with the Chinese and "if something [were] not done
[they would] take up the idea suggested in Seattle and elsewhere
West and force the pig-tails out of town."20

Adding to the alarm of the white merchants was a rumor that
dozens more Chinese were scheduled for arrival in the city. The
Atlanta Constitution, expressing sympathy for the merchants' plight,
erroneously reported "hundreds" of Chinese "thriving" in Augusta,
and mentioned that Chinese immigration into the city had recently in-
creased. Explicit in the article was fear that the city would be overrun
by Chinese. The Chronicle responded by sending reporters to talk to
the white merchants and engaged a Chinese correspondent in order
to cover both sides of the story. The white shopkeepers accused the
Chinese of dishonest trading and "unhallowed and cunning competi-
tion." Once praised for their frugality, the Chinese were now cursed
for it. It would seem that the main competitive edge the Chinese had
was living in their stores to reduce personal expenses to "one-tenth
what it cost decent men to live." "For ways that are dark and tricks
that are vain the Heathen Chinee is peculiar," quoted the white
merchant's spokesman from Bret Harte's popular poem of the period.
The Chinese in turn denied the allegation that they systematically
swindled their customers and presented themselves as a settled
group with a stake in the community. They reminded their accusers
that the Chinese government protected American speculators in
China and that they had a right to expect the United States govern-
ment to extend them the same protection. The Chinese also stated
that they knew of no large scale influx of Chinese planned for
Augusta and their group numbered only 31, six of whom were
visitors.21

All the publicity badly frightened the Chinese, who at one point
locked themselves in one of their rooms and refused to come out. It
took the joint efforts of the Mayor and several ladies from the newly
organized Baptist Chinese Sunday School to convince them their
property would not be confiscated and that no bodily harm would
come to them. The Chronicle sympathized with the Chinese and was
of the opinion that the crusade against them was a strike against free

42

enterprise. The issue of business permits faded from the news, but
the Chronicle continued to examine its Chinese community. A series
of articles appeared in 1886 about opium smoking among the Chi-
nese shopkeepers, and one reporter made the rounds of the various
"opium dens" in the city to see how this activity was conducted. The
paper made it clear that they were making war on the drug and not
the Chinese, but it was generally believed that the Chinese were re-
sponsible for introducing opium into the city and that the laundries
were but fronts for its distribution and use. This was a popularly held
notion throughout the country at the time and the initial investigation
into the city's opium parlors seems to have been prompted by some
commentary by a visitor from Baltimore who attested to know this for
a fact in his city and issued a friendly warning to Augustans to
beware. The public response to this went unrecorded and it appar-
ently did not precipitate any new movements to eliminate the Chi-
nese community. The issue died after a month or so, and the Chi-
nese were seemingly left alone, at least in print, until 1890.

Continued Growth and Resentment in the 1890s

By 1890, despite some agitation over the presence of Chinese in
the city, the Chinese population had grown considerably. Of the 108
Chinese in the state, 29 were settled in Richmond County. Augusta
City Directories for 1890 list about 20 Chinese operating grocery
stores and several laundries. The stores were clustered mainly on
opposite ends of Broad Street in the central business district and
some were extended down Ninth Street into a growing black residen-
tial area. In 1891 an additional dozen groceries and another laundry
appeared listed in the city directory with two of the laundries noted to
serve dual purposes as restaurants. After the large increase, the
numbers of stores stabilized for the decade.

The 1890s also saw a spate of articles in the Chronicle related to
the Chinese. One of them described the Chinese orchestra formed
by Augusta's "moon-eyed merchants." Apparently it had become the
custom of the Chinese to meet in one of their Broad Street stores
when "the departing sun on the western skies lit roseate hues." The
Chinese would "eat, gamble, police themselves according to their
own code of behavior, play music, and perhaps indulge in a pipe of
opium." The orchestra was characterized as a "fearful and wonderful
conglomeration of sounds, if one could take a moment to imagine the

43

harmonious strains of a boiler, a saw sharpener, and a vocally
inclined piglet being trussed up." The reporter, however, was quick to
admonish readers that taste in music was no doubt culturally ac-
quired and that appreciation of Chinese music might well be gained
by education in such matters. The reporter also expressed admira-
tion for the strict rules of behavior exercised within the Chinese
community saying that Caucasians should "blush with shame" over
the comparatively lax laws of the city and state.22 The piece was
written in a lighthearted vein and seems indicative of a turning point
in community attitudes toward the Chinese. The antagonism seemed
to be abating and there was an attempt, at least by some, to recog-
nize and understand the Chinese.

In 1892 the Geary Act added to the stringency of the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882. Under this law all Chinese laborers were
forbidden entry into the United States, and the ones remaining had to
be photographed for identity papers. Augusta's Chinese were all
merchants and not required to register but chose to do so for protec-
tion. In 1 894, a Mr. Cobb, the state's representative for this law, came
to handle the applications and conduct the photography session.
Fifty-two Chinese were counted in the city, including one woman and
her baby. This is the first known written record of a Chinese woman
or child in Augusta.23 Mr. Cobb, who had traveled the state register-
ing the Chinese said, "The Chinese are a shrewd set of people, and
they are working a great trick upon the ladies of this and other cities in
the state." When asked to what he was referring, he replied that the
Chinese are the shrewdest and trickiest people on earth, were very
ambitious and are eager to learn to read, write, and speak the
English language, and are getting that education by attending church
aid Sunday Schools that the Christian ladies conduct especially for
them on the Sabbath Day.24

He went on to complain that the Chinese did not lose a day's work
because the law prohibited Sunday openings, and that once they
were satisfied with their command of English they quit going to
church and did not become Christianized. His was a common com-
plaint of the time. The Chinese were slowly giving up their sojourner
mentality and making efforts to acculturate. Church schools were the
only access most had to a formal education and there were many
such schools organized throughout the country, where the Chinese

44

irst acquired the rudiments of English and knowledge of the western
culture.
Perhaps the most disturbing event that occurred within Augusta's
hinese community in the 1890s was the murder of Yip Sing, a
'respected and inoffensive" grocer who had lived in Augusta for
about eight years. The murder was never solved, but it was thought
to have been a ritual killing of the "Highbinders", a secret Chinese
society, which, when transplanted in the United States, assumed the
role of persecuting Chinese who had forsaken ancestor worship for
Christianity and violated traditional rules of conduct.25 The murder
served to illustrate the tremendous pressure the Chinese were under
o conform to two very different sets of cultural norms. The Chinese
suffered violence from within and violence without. White society
criticized and attacked them for being different but also pressured
them by custom and law to acculturate and assimilate. Traditional
Chinese social organizations criticized and attacked those who strayed
from the strong internal controls of the Chinese community.

Apart from relating the tragedy of Yip Sing, the Chronicle's stories
about the murder provided some valuable information about the
customs and daily lives of the Augusta Chinese. For example, though
Augusta Chinese, like most Chinese in America, were in the habit of
sending their dead back to China for burial, Yip Sing was buried in
Augusta's white cemetery. The service was not in accordance with
the "weird and interesting" rites of the Chinese religion; it was a
simple Baptist service conducted in English. The paper also reported
that Yip Sing lived in a tiny garret over his store. His grocery had
about $500 worth of stock, which would have made it a modest-sized
store with a limited number of items. He kept his cash divided into
small amounts and secreted them in various parts of his living
quarters, apparently preferring not to use a bank.26 From accounts of
other Chinese in the United States during this period, it would seem
that this was representative of a typical Chinese bachelor's life style
and behavior; so it may be assumed it was true of many of Augusta's
Chinese bachelors as well.

Social Changes in the 20th Century

At the turn of the century the Chinese population of Augusta stood
at 41 , most of whom may be accounted for by the city directory.
There were approximately 29 groceries in the city and 8 laundries.

45

Four Chinese are listed as clerks in Chinese stores and two married
couples are noted. Most Chinese stores were in the central city,
primarily in three small clusters located on Broad Street or directly off
Broad on a major artery; other groceries were located in the adjacent
growing black residential district. By most accounts, the Chinese
markets from very early on had catered to blacks. As the black
population expanded into the southeastern portion of the city, the
Chinese followed their trade.27 There is no indication from any source
that the move was prompted in part by continuing efforts of white
merchants to rid themselves of Chinese competition.

The United States Census records an increase in Augusta's Chi-
nese population from 48 in 1910 to 74 in 1920. The City Directory,
however, shows no substantial increase in the numbers of Chinese
businesses. In fact, the numbers of groceries remained between 25
and 30 from the early 1880s through the early 1920s. By 1920 most
Chinese-operated groceries had shifted to corner locations in the
black residential section, leaving only a few Chinese markets in the
downtown area. There was also a corresponding movement of white
residential sections in the western portion of the city. Several whites
operated markets located in the black section, and there were ap-
proximately 49 markets operated by blacks. The Chinese laundries
maintained their downtown locations but began to decline slightly in
numbers. This decline was part of the national trend, as the tradi-
tional Chinese hand laundry began to be replaced by commercial
steam laundries and home laundry appliances.28 Until the 1940s,
when the coin-operated laundromat began appearing in the subur-
ban shopping centers, most of Augusta's laundries remained in the
central city, where the dwindling numbers of Chinese hand laundries
shared an almost exclusively white clientele with the more successful
white-owned steam laundries.

Although there were several families established in Augusta by
1920, the community was still predominately male, single or married
with wives and families in China, and mostly foreign-born. The over-
whelming majority of Chinese were self-employed. With the excep-
tion of one Chinese woman who was listed in the 1920 City Directory
as a housekeeper, the few who were not self-employed were em-
ployed by other Chinese. Even with the addition of families to the
community, it remained the custom for the Chinese to maintain living

46

quarters in their places of business. Employees usually boarded with
employers.

The United States Census for 1930 showed that Augusta's Chi-
nese population had risen to 153. There were approximately 48
Chinese-owned groceries in the city and 6 laundries. The business-
residential pattern was similar to that of the previous decade with a
few Chinese laundries in the central business district and a concen-
tration of Chinese markets in the black residential district. In fact, by
the 1930s the Chinese seem to have garnered most of the black
trade. In the early 1920s Chinese and black grocers appeared to
have shared equally at least by numbers of stores in food retailing
in the black neighborhoods. But by 1930 the number of black-owned
stores had dropped from 49 to 14, while the numbers of Chinese
stores in the area had risen from 20 to 45. White-owned markets in
the area remained insignificant in numbers.

It is difficult to account specifically for the proliferation of Chinese
markets and the failure of blacks to compete for their own customers.
One explanation for the phenomenon has been offered in Loewen's
study of Chinese and black competition in food retailing in the Missis-
sippi Delta. According to Loewen, blacks had difficulty making objec-
tive business decisions about matters of credit because "with so
many families always on the edge of immediate want, personal ties
meant personal claims." The Chinese grocer, on the other hand,
maintained social distance from the black community and was not
under any obligation to extend credit to those who could not or would
not pay.29

Residential Patterns

The earliest Chinese in Augusta were reported to have been
housed in a "shed" by the canal they were hired to enlarge.30 Pre-
sumably the Chinese workers shared this accommodation from 1 873
to 1875, when the canal was completed and the work crew dis-
banded. By 1876 there was a Chinese residing in his tea shop on
Broad Street. The shop-house business-residential pattern was tra-
ditional in South China, where most of the early immigrants came
from, and it became the most common business-residential pattern
for Chinese in this country.

Most of the Chinese in Augusta lived in their stores until the 1 950s,
when the shop-house pattern began to break down. At first they were

47

located primarily in the central city, scattered among a mixture of
black and white enterprises. But by 1920 the majority had relocated
in black neighborhoods, where the shop-house type corner Chinese
grocery became the common form. By the 1940s a few Chinese had
moved into private homes adjacent to, or within a few blocks of, their
stores. U.S. Census tract data for 1 940 shows residential patterns for
"Asians" neatly conforming to Chinese business patterns.

City Directory and U.S. Census tract data for the 1 950s and 1 960s
show a continuing trend toward separation of business and resi-
dence and a general movement out of the black districts. The most
recent census tract data available for this study 1970 shows only
18 of the 282 Chinese in the city still residing in the old black
neighborhoods. The majority of the Chinese were located in predomi-
nantly white neighborhoods and the Chinese business locations
appear randomly dispersed. City Directory information for 1 980 shows
a persistence of the 1970 pattern.

Growing Acceptance

Another determinant of Chinese success may have been a change
in relations with the white community. Although the Chinese lived in
the black neighborhoods, increasing amounts of their social relations
were with whites. Chinese children went to white schools and many
Chinese were affiliated with the white First Baptist Church.31 Whites
operated the wholesale houses which supplied Chinese retail out-
lets, and the Chinese had earned their respect as good businessmen
and credit risks. The Chinese Benevolent Association, local chapter
of a national Chinese organization, founded in Augusta in 1927, had
among its goals to promote "friendly feeling" between the Chinese
community and the community at large.32 There seems to have been
no parallel organization in the black community to engender group
cohesiveness and actively seek improved relations with the white
community. So, although the Chinese were distinctive by their physi-
cal appearance, their goals, values, dress, and behavior reflected
those of the white community. Their middleman position in the eco-
nomic hierarchy also defined their social position in the community
and allowed them social mobility denied the blacks.

In 1931 this position was briefly threatened by a bill introduced in
the State Legislature to deny funding to white schools which enrolled
Asian children. A flurry of anti-Asian sentiment had been prompted

48

by the Sino-Japanese War (1931-1945), but the bill seems not to
have excited much press coverage and it was not passed. The
Chinese community, however, was affected by the war in other ways.
Many still had family ties with China and thousands of dollars were
raised to help the Chinese government fight the Japanese. A number
of young men in the community went to flight school to prepare
themselves as pilots and were ready to enlist in the Chinese military
if necessary. Although the census is not detailed enough to provide
data on nativity for Georgia cities, it seems probable that the aspiring
young pilots represented first or second generation Chinese-Ameri-
cans.

The 1940s saw an increase in the Chinese population from 153 to
222. The pattern of Chinese groceries remained the same, but the
numbers rose from approximately 48 to 63. The City Directory for
1941 listed only one Chinese laundry, in keeping with a steady
decline in the number of laundries since 1900. In 1943 the United
States Government finally granted the Chinese naturalization rights
and relaxed immigration restrictions against them. The Government
granted a quota of 105 in 1943, and several years later Congress
made special provisions for the immigration of Chinese women and
children under the War Brides Act. Augusta's Chinese were reported
to be pleased with the changes, and citizenship no doubt improved
their position in their community. The new immigration laws, how-
ever, seem to have had little effect on the total population. In 1 950 the
census reported 224 in Richmond County, the same figure given by
the 1940 census.

From the turn of the century Georgia's newspaper references to
the Chinese community had become increasingly routine. A note or
an article here and there reported the involvement of a Chinese in
community activity, scholastic achievements, and promotions. But
reports were phrased in such a manner that the Chinese were
portrayed as an integral part of the community, unlike blacks whose
social activities were relegated to a separate page. Also with the
advent of the civil rights movement and resurgence of ethnic pride
among American minorities, the Chinese became more outspoken
about themselves. In 1 958 a Chronicle staff writer interviewed a C.H.
Lam about the low incident of juvenile delinquency among Chinese
and the strong traditional Chinese family structure which still charac-

49

terized the typical family unit in Augusta. He also noted the fine
reputation of Chinese children in school and stated that "in the last
decade, virtually every Chinese youth in Richmond County was
graduated from high school and almost all of them went on to
college."34

By 1960 the Chinese population had risen to 270. The number of
Chinese markets had been reduced almost by half of the 1950 total,
with the majority of the remaining stores still located in the black
residential district. Many more Chinese were to be found in the
professions, primarily medical and teaching. From the mid-1950s,
because of the Anglicization of names, it becomes increasingly
difficult to differentiate Chinese individuals and businesses in the city
directories, but it seems reasonable to assume that the surveys of
the directories from 1960-80 are representative samples of the distri-
bution of people and enterprises, and of primary occupations. So,
although the data derived from city directories for the latter period of
this study is valuable, it is not directly comparable to the earlier
figures. However, even if the decline in groceries seen between 1950
and 1960 was somewhat exaggerated by the problem of interpreting
city directories, it is accurate to say that a general trend toward the
decline of Chinese in the grocery business existed. In the mid-1950s
the number of groceries peaked at around 65. In 1970 there were 50
Chinese markets according to Chinese sources and by 1980 there
were only about a dozen left.

There are several factors which contributed to the decline in mar-
kets and occupational shifts among the Chinese. By the 1940s the
overall level of education within the Chinese community was rising.
Chinese families encouraged educational attainment by using in-
come from the family business to help their children through school
with expectations that they would enter professional positions. The
large numbers of Chinese found in Augusta in the last two decades in
the teaching and medical professions are in keeping with the national
trend. At the same time the Chinese markets began losing their
cheap family labor they also found themselves in competition with the
growing numbers of chain markets which offered a wider selection of
goods at lower prices. The Chinese were not the only victims of the
change in the city's shopping patterns; black and white small retail
groceries all lost business to the suburban shopping centers.

50

In the 1960s the city was beset by race problems and the Chinese
became targets of blacks venting frustrations of a century of repres-
sion. Chinese informants say that many Chinese families became
distressed over the conditions and left the city. In 1970 the situation
exploded when a mob of black rioters destroyed many of the Chinese
groceries in the black section of town. The riot was apparently well
planned. No black-owned businesses were damaged, but Chinese
and white businesses were looted and burned. The Chinese were
hardest hit, collectively suffering losses in excess of $250,000. A
committee of black, white, and Chinese businessmen was formed to
assess the problem and negotiate a solution.

The black community encouraged the Chinese to rebuild, saying "If
we run them away, how in the world will we be able to get industry
into the area?"35 The Chinese had also provided jobs for blacks in
their stores, the loss of which, blacks acknowledged, would be sorely
felt. Before rebuilding, however, Chinese businessmen requested a
guarantee of no more violence.36

Many Chinese did remain and rebuild. In general, the Augusta
Chinese are one of Georgia's most successful ethnic groups a
group that has "made it" achieving the American dream of social,
educational, and economic success.

NOTES

1 See: Thomas W. Ganschow, "The Chinese in America: A Historical Perspective" in
Selected Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Minority Studies (La Crosse,
Wise: Institute For Minority Studies, 1976), pp. 235-238.

2 Stuart Miller, The Unwelcome Immigrant (Berkeley: University of California, 1969), p. 189.
Not all reports reaching early Americans from China were negative. For a contrast to
Miller's conclusions, see: Jonathan Goldstein, Philadelphia and the China Trade, 1682-
1846. Commercial, Cultural, and Attitudinal Effects (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1978).

3 Gunter Barth, Bitter Strength (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp.
188-189.

4 Mildred Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia (New York: Columbia University Press,
1915), p. 2.

5 Savannah Morning News, January 3, 1866, p. 2.

6 North Georgia Citizen (Columbus), July 9, 1868, p. 2.

7 Willard Range, A Century of Georgia Agriculture 1850- 1950 (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 1954), pp. 70-71.

8 Savannah Daily News and Herald, November 1 0, 1 865, p. I.

9 Savannah Daily News and Herald, November 8, 1866, p. 2.

10 Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel, September 10, 1869, p. 1 .

11 Augusta Chronicle, September 21, 1869, p. 2.

12 Augusta Chronicle, October 21, 1873, p. 2.

51

13 The Constitutionalist (Augusta), November 5, 1873, p. 1.

14 Augusta Chronicle, November 15, 1873, p. 4.

15 Edwin Cashin, in The Story of Augusta (Augusta: Richmond County Board of Education,
1 980), is the most recent researcher to assert that "Chinese workers were brought in, over
two hundred in all." p. 150.

16 Miller, Unwelcome Immigrant, passim.

17 Augusta Chronicle, May 4, 1882. See also: The Constitutionalist, May 4, 1882.

18 Augusta Chronicle, December 3, 1885, p. 4; December 9, 1885, p5.

19 Savannah Morning News, December 9, 1885, p. 5.

20 Atlanta Constitution, March 9, 1886, p. 2.

21 Augusta Chronicle, March 13, 1886, p. 8.

22 Augusta Chronicle, July 15, 1890, p. 3.

23 Augusta Chronicle, February 21 , 1 894, p. 5.

24 Augusta Chronicle, March 29, 1894, p. 8.

25 Augusta Chronicle, January 22, 1896, p. 2.

26 Augusta Chronicle, January 23, 1896, p. 2.

27 S.M. Chin, "The Chinese of Augusta, Georgia," Bulletin of the Chinese Historical Society
of America 13 (February 1978).

28 Rose Hum Lee, "The Decline of Chinatown in the United States," American Journal of
Sociology 54 (March 1949).

29 James W. Loewen,_777e Mississippi Chinese (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1971), passim. See also: Robert Seto Quan, Lotus Among the Magnolias: The Mississippi
Chinese (Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1982), passim.

30 The Constitutionalist, November 9, 1873, p. 5.

31 Saely Ken, "The Chinese Community of Augusta, Georgia from 1 873 to 1 971 ," Richmond
County History 4 (1972), pp. 51-60.

32 Ken, "Chinese Community."

33 Augusta Chronicle, February 23, 1932, p. I.

34 Augusta Chronicle, July 21 , 1958, p. 8.

35 Augusta Chronicle, May 21,1 970, p. 1 1 .

36 Augusta Chronicle, May 21,1 970, p. 1 1 .

52

APPENDIX ONE

CHINESE POPULATION OF GEORGIA 1860-1980*

Total

Male

Female

Male/Female

1860

1870

1

1

1880

17

17

1890

108

105

3

35/1

1900

204

192

12

16/1

1910

233

218

15

14.5/1

1920

211

187

24

7.8/1

1930

253

181

72

2.5/1

1940

326

205

121

1.7/1

1950

511

302

209

1.4/1

1960

686

371

315

1.1/1

1970

1584

892

692

1.3/1

1980

4324

n/a

n/a

n/a

*Source:

U.S. Census Bureau,

1860-1980 Censuses.

APPENDIX TWO

NUMBERS OF CHINESE OWNED GROCERIES AND LAUNDRIES
IN AUGUSTA, SAVANNAH, AND ATLANTA 1880-1890*

1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980

Laundries

Groceries

Augusta

Savannah

Atlanta

Augusta

Savannah

1

1

**

8

**

2

11

6

20

**

8

31

37

29

**

12

23

40

25

**

10

20

34

29

**

6

7

17

48

4

1

7

13

63

6

2

**

10

65

**

2

**

3

50

**

2

**

**

18

**

**

**

**

12

8

Atlanta

**
**
**

*Source: City Directories for Augusta, Savannah, and Atlanta, 1880-1980.
"Indicates information is not available or data sources incomplete or questionable.

53

APPENDIX THREE
CHINESE POPULATION OF GEORGIA BY COUNTY, 1880

'Source: United States Census Bureau, 1880 Census.

54

APPENDIX FOUR
CHINESE POPULATION OF GEORGIA BY COUNTY, 1930'

'Source: United States Census Bureau, 1930 Census.

55

APPENDIX FIVE
CHINESE POPULATION OF GEORGIA BY COUNTY, 1980*

"Source: United States Census Bureau, 1980 Census.

56

The Expulsion of Loo Chang from Waynesboro:
A Case Study of Sinophobia in Georgia in 1883

BESS BEATTY

When Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and promi-
nent spokesman for the ideals of the New South, assured Southern-
ers of the "truth" of white supremacy, he was primarily comparing
whites with blacks but also including other non-whites in his racial
hierarchy. Shortly after passage of the Chinese Exclusion Law in
1882, Grady rejoiced that a national sense of racial superiority "has
just spoken in universally approved legislation in excluding the China-
man from our gates." Historian Dan Caldwell suggests that the
Chinese underwent a process of "Negroization" being likened to
and treated as blacks in the nineteenth century.1 An analysis of the
Loo Chang incident of 1 883 as a case study of sinophobia in Georgia
reinforces to some extent the racist inclusiveness Grady celebrated
and Caldwell describes. However, it also points to variations of racial
stereotyping and discrimination, depending on the group involved.

Southern whites' responses to Chinese and blacks differed as a
result particularly of the disproportionate numbers involved. "The
flood tide of European immigration," C. Vann Woodward observes,
"swept past the South, leaving it almost untouched and further isolat-
ing it in its peculiarities from the rest of the country."2 Woodward's
observation is just as applicable to Chinese immigration. Compared

*Professor Beatty teaches American history at Oregon State University and has also taught
at Shorter College, Rome, Georgia. She received her Ph.D. in American history from Florida
State University in 1976. Dr. Beatty has published articles and reviews in Afro-American
history and United States labor history. The original version of this article, published in The
Georgian Historical Quarterly 67, No. 1 (Spring, 1983), is republished with that journal's
permission and with the kind assistance of Theodore B. Fitz-Simons, Curator of The Georgia
Historical Society.

57

with the steady stream of Europeans into the Northeast and Midwest
and the thousands of Chinese seeking employment on the west
coast, the South was "almost untouched." The 1880 census, for
example, lists only seventeen Chinese in Georgia (a count that was
likely an under-enumeration, but the number was small).3

Large numbers of Chinese first began emigrating to the United
States after the development of regular transpacific steamer service
in approximately 1850. Initially almost all Chinese emigrated to Cali-
fornia. Several authors have attempted to analyze the stereotypes of
Chinese that existed in 1 850 and the effect that the accelerated influx
had on these attitudes. Gunter Barth suggests that intensive preju-
dice first developed in California only after large numbers of Orientals
immigrated, and was due primarily to their sojourner status. Stuart
Miller more convincingly argues the contrary view that prejudice and
stereotypes extended back to the first commercial-diplomatic-mis-
sionary contacts with China and, therefore, were already deep-rooted
in 1850. Negative images, he contends, always intermingled with the
more positive concepts of ancient Chinese accomplishments.4

The ante-bellum South, far removed from the world of Chinese
workers and preoccupied with defining relations between black and
white, gave far less attention to the Chinese than did whites on the
west coast. But Southerners were not entirely oblivious to Oriental
immigration. Ironically, despite the Southern proclivity for racial de-
marcation, Richmond, Virginia's Southern Literary Messenger ap-
peared nationally in the 1830s and 40s as a major defender of the
Chinese. An 1841 article, "China and The Chinese," for example,
claimed that while the Chinese had their faults, they also had many
virtues that they were a people "preservingly industrious, habitually
temperate and devoted to peaceful pursuits." The Literary Messen-
ger was not, however, typical, as many Southerners included Orien-
tals in their categorization of inferior races. Some Northerners, in fact,
were fearful that the many Southerners settling in California in the
1850s would as readily enslave the coolie workers as they had the
blacks.5

Although the vast majority of early Chinese immigrants remained in
the West, some labored, particularly on railroad construction and
mining, in other parts of the country. William Kelly brought the first
known Chinese workers into the South in the 1850s to work in his

58

Kentucky iron refineries. But the Southern ante-bellum demand for
labor was not extensive enough to warrant widespread importation of
immigrant workers.

The aftermath of the Civil War, however, saw the South's tightly
controlled labor supply in shambles. Plantation owners, hoping to
recoup pre-Civil War profits but doubtful that free blacks would
satisfactorily supply their labor demands, led the movement to import
foreign labor, including Chinese coolies. They believed that the
Chinese would be politically docile and they also hoped that, with an
alternative racial group available, the freedman would be forced to
economic terms.6 Frances Butler Leigh, a planter in Darien, Georgia,
noted in her diary in 1 869 that using "Chinese labour on plantations in
the place of negro labour" which had become "hopelessly
unmanageable. ..interested us all very much."7 Leaders in virtually
every Southern state expressed interest, generally with an expecta-
tion of success. The planters were often joined in their efforts to lure
in immigrant workers by "New South" industrialists who wished to
build a labor supply. In July 1869, two hundred delegates from all
over the South primarily planters, landowners, and industrial finan-
ciers met at the Chinese Labor Convention in Memphis to plan the
promotion and importation of Chinese labor.8

The high point of Southern interest in Chinese labor came in 1869.
The Sino-American Burlingame Treaty of 1868 guaranteed the unre-
stricted immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States. But
even in 1869 Southerners were divided concerning this new labor
scheme. DeBow's Review, a leading promoter of immigration into the
South in the post-Civil War period, reflected this dichotomy of thought
in its July 1 869 issue. A. P. Merrill, a fervent supporter of importation,
wrote that Europeans were physically unsuited to labor in the hot sun
and blacks were "doomed to extermination," but insisted that God
would not allow the region's fertile fields to go to waste. The Chinese,
he concluded, were the solution. He stated that "for many years it has
been a puzzle to determine the designs of providence in regard to
these numberless people. It has been left for us, in this favored
region, to unravel the great mystery, and to discover the wonderful
adaptation of means to ends here is the soil, there are the laborers
and the power of steam has brought them together." Another author
in the same issue, however, condemned bringing the Chinese work-

59

ers on the grounds that they would only exacerbate the South's racial
dilemma.9 Frances Butler Leigh provides another example of this
ambivalence. She "nervously" contracted for seventy Chinese work-
ers because she feared that otherwise her property would go to ruin.
Later she expressed relief that large numbers of an alien race had not
come.10 Blacks, the lowest rung of the Southern economic scale, also
had mixed reactions to the possible immigration of the Chinese.
Some regarded them as potential economic rivals while others em-
phasized the similar plight of both groups.11

Despite Southern recruiting efforts, few Chinese workers found
sufficient inducement to relocate. Statistics are difficult to establish
because many coolies did not remain long enough to be included in
the censuses, but probably no more than a few thousand came South
in this period. Some of them were employed in sugar, cotton, and rice
fields with limited success. Others worked on various construction
projects, particularly railroad building. About two hundred were brought
into Augusta, Georgia, in 1871 to work on a canal extension project.
(See Brown and Ganschow's article in this journal on the Augusta
Chinese.) They formed the second largest block of Southern Chinese
and were among the first contacts most people in the Augusta area
ever had with Chinese people.12

As federal Reconstruction waned, native white Southerners re-
established control over the black population and lost interest in
replacing black labor with other groups. Some of the Chinese left after
projects were completed as the Augusta canal was in 1875 but
others remained. Several in Augusta opened small grocery and
drygoods stores, an occupation typical of the Chinese in the South. In
this trade they carved for themselves a precarious niche in the
Southern hierarchy.13

It was also in the 1 870s that demands for a ban on the immigration
of Chinese workers became common not only in the West but in the
rest of the country as well. An 1 870 poem by Bret Harte was reprinted
nationwide and popularized the image of the "Heathen Chinee." Nine
years later President Rutherford B. Hayes wrote that the influx of
Chinese was "pernicious and should be discouraged."14 Mary Cool-
idge and Carey McWilliams have claimed that Southerners migrating
to California played a key role in fostering white supremacist ideas
and that a South-West alliance was at the core of exclusion senti-

60

ment. Stuart Miller has challenged both Coolidge and McWilliams by
describing considerable sinophobia existing in New England. He
does, however, agree that "southern contingents [Congressmen]
voted unanimously for the various destructive and exclusionist meas-
ures," and implies that most Southern whites agreed.15

There is considerable evidence supporting claims that white South-
erners were virtually unanimous for restriction. Georgia Representa-
tive Emory Speer's vitriolic harangues on the House floor concerning
the "vicious," "less clean," "morally depraved" Chinese were echoed
by his colleague James Blount, who condemned allowing the entry of
a people "ignorant, pagan and polygamous." They and most other
Southern Congressmen voted for exclusion.16 But historians have
generally overlooked the fact that there was also some Southern
opposition to exclusion. Senator Joseph E. Brown, the most promi-
nent Georgian in Washington, was a critic of exclusion on the grounds
that it violated an 1 880 treaty with China, which allowed the regulation
but not the prohibition of Chinese immigration. He also argued that
such a policy might so offend China that missionary efforts would be
stifled and that it could destroy a potentially valuable market for
Southern textiles. "It would be foolishness on our part," he wrote, "to
seek to wantonly offend these people, and destroy our influence and
our commerce among them."17 Brown spoke for other New South
merchants who were more concerned with expanding markets than
with racial exclusion.

Georgia's newspapers also reflected dividied opinion. Initially The
Atlanta Constitution opposed the bill for the same reasons Brown did.
Its Washington correspondent condemned supporters for ignoring
the many positive contributions of the Orientals while focusing only
on their negative characteristics. But midway through the exclusion
debate, the paper began defending the country's right to keep out
"the diseased, desolute, destitute, and prostitute."18 The Augusta
Chronicle, representing the city with Georgia's largest Chinese popu-
lation, consistently supported exclusion of the "pig-tailed Celestial" on
the grounds that while "all dark races are obnoxious to white men,"
the Chinese are "more dangerous than the negro." That the bill was
something of an embarassment to some Republicans augmented the
Chronicle's support. It was "one of the revenges of time," the paper
claimed, that Pacific coast senators who helped impose the Four-

61

teenth and Fifteenth Amendments" upon the prostrate South" now
wanted Southern aid.19 The Waynesboro True-Citizen was launched
in late April 1 882, after the fight for exclusion had waned. Ironically, in
this small town, where less than a month later the entire Chinese
population was threatned and expelled, this newspaper concluded
that President Arthur's veto of exclusion should be upheld "if one of
the fundamental principles upon which this Republic was founded
means anything."20

Arthur's veto was upheld, but Congress then passed a ten-year
exclusion act which he signed. For the first time in American history,
one national group had been banned from entry. It was, according to
Stuart Miller, a case of an "unfavorable image made official."21

Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia, where "pig-tailed Celestials"
were condemned as "more dangerous than the negro," was the home
of approximately thirty Chinese in 1882, the year the Exclusion Act
was passed. One of them, Willie Loo Chang, arrived about 1880 and
prospered, selling dry goods and Chinese novelties. In July 1882, he
married Dennie Fulcher, a young white woman from neighboring
Burke County and moved to Waynesboro, the small county seat
serving that county's cotton farmers, to open a general store. The
marriage aroused considerable interest in the two-county area with
Caucasian-Oriental intermarriage both defended and condemned. A
judge had questioned whether he could issue a marriage license in
light of Georgia's miscegenation laws, but finally concluded that
Chinese were not "colored" and allowed the marriage. The Waynesboro
True-Citizen defended the marriage, but only by rationalizing that the
groom had been Americanized by discarding his queue and Chinese
dress and going to church regularly. According to the newspaper,
Chang had become in every respect a "Mellican Man," the True-
Citizen's way of ridiculing the way in which a Chinese might pro-
nounce the word "American." When the criticism continued, the True-
Citizen countered, "This is the progressive nineteenth century and if
the contracting parties are satisfied, we don't propose to lose much
sleep about it."22

In January 1 883, with some financial assistance from his American
brother-in-law, Willie Loo Chang had formed a company including his
brother Thomas Loo Chang and Ah Sing, a friend, rented a store, and
began stocking it with goods. News of the impending opening had

62

arrived in Waynesboro well ahead for the merchants, and for weeks it
was the center of the town's attention. To most it was a topic of
curiosity, but among some of the town's retailers there was opposi-
tion, likely compounded by the recent opening of several other new
stores, including one owned by J.L. Fulcher, a relative of Loo Chang's
wife. One merchant expressed his pique when advertising that "al-
though the Chinese have come," he carried first class stock. Others,
headed by Major William Wilkins, the richest and most influential man
in the county, planned to stymie the new rival to their economic
monopolies. The county's financial dictators were especially angered
by the rumored conversion of considerable black business to Loo
Chang and Company.23

On the day the Chinese opened for business, they were warned,
"We the undersigned merchants of this city do hereby notify you to
raise the price of your goods, or the consequences will be 'China or
Death'". The note was signed "Respectfully, Oscar Wilde," with other
fictitious names added. A few days later Loo Chang and his associ-
ates were warned "merchants here will do you like they did the
Chinese in Harrisgurg [a small town in neighboring Richmond County],
only they will kill you tonight."24

On February 1 , more than twenty men broke into the store, drove
out several black customers, and demanded that the Chinese mer-
chants leave town. Ah Sing agreed to their demand "to go back to
'Gusta," but Thomas Loo Chang, who was in charge in Willie Loo
Chang's absence, refused. He subsequently was cursed and pushed
out of the store with his hands tied and a flour sack over his head. The
gang then took him to the town cemetery, fired their pistols, and
threatened to lynch Thomas Loo Chang until he also agreed to leave.
They then robbed the store of merchandise of two hundred dollars
and left. The two merchants fled Waynesboro that night and almost
immediately reported the incident to the Chinese minister in Wash-
ington. When Secretary of State Frederick Frelinghuysen received
the minister's complaint, he informed Georgia Governor James S.
Boynton, and a state investigation was launched. In addition, United
States Attorney General Benjamin Harris Brewster ordered the U.S.
District Attorney Sion A. Darnell to apprehend and convict those
responsible. Willie Loo Chang and Company also hired a team of
prominent Augusta and Atlanta lawyers and sued their assailants for

63

fifty thousand dollars.25

The case attracted attention all over the eastern United States and
even as far away as London. Both of the Waynesboro papers were
initially sympathetic with the Chinese. The editor of the Herald-
Expositor, not above sinophobia but believing that "good people" had
"gone wrong," wrote that "we have not heard that Loo Chang was
charged with any wrong doing. The reason alleged is that he was not
wanted here. That may all be true, and we are also of the opinion that
his race are not desirable citizens. But that a self-constituted commit-
tee of regulators have the right to run him out and interfere with
business legitimately followed is bad precedent and contrary to good
order." However, in the next few weeks the Herald-Expositor sof-
tened its condemnation of the defendants and indirectly enhanced
their position by publishing several sinophobic articles.26 The True-
Citizen also switched its support to the defendants, ostensibly be-
cause the Chinese had sued for "outrageous" damages but probably
because the editor came to realize that the town's economic elite was
involved.27 Papers outside the city generally made light of the rough
handling of the Chinese merchants. The Atlanta Constitution did not
overtly pass judgment but in reporting the case treated the Chinese
condescendingly. Articles included "Jim Chang's Rough Experience
in Waynesboro," and "Kukluxing a Chinaman," which reported that "a
Celestial Merchant in Waynesboro was invited to leave suddenly."28

Georgia papers became more defensive when the case was publi-
cized out of the state. The New York Times did not report the incident
for over a month but then gave it considerable attention. The New
York paper, by claiming that Lee Chang's expulsion had occurred not
because of labor competition but because of "local prejudice against
miscegenation," opened a bitter exchange with the Waynesboro
papers. In support of its contention, the Times claimed that in several
Georgia communities, where the Chinese ran businesses but were
not intermarried, they were well-treated.29 The True-Citizen vehe-
mently denied the charges but at the same time became more
blatantly racist in its treatment of the case. Georgia, the editor
proclaimed, wanted emigrants but only "good citizens French,
German, Irish, English, or any nation of the Caucasian race." As for
the Chinese, he now insisted, "every place where these heathens
have a lodgment the people writhe and groan under the affliction."

64

The editor also indicated that "the horror of miscegenation" was not
far from his thinking when he wrote that "our young ladies are
cultivated and refined and would be horrified and disgusted at the
very thought of miscegenating with these heathen."30

In May the case came to trial in Waynesboro. Although the original
sitting grand jury was purged for consisting almost entirely of relatives
of the accused, the subsequent court returned "no bill." The grand
jurors voted thanks to court officials for their "vigilance, energy and
ability" in handling the case. The True-Citizen noted that in the case
"which has made more noise in the whole world than perhaps any
other on record" the Chinese "failed to show one farthing worth of
damage to person or property."31

District Attorney Darnell, however, concluded that there had been
more sinophobia than vigilance. He wrote Attorney General Brewster
that the "no bill" had been returned because of "local prejudice
against the Chinaman and the influence of the parties accused."
Because of his concern that the Chinese merchants' civil rights be
upheld and because of international interest in the case, Darnell
wanted to continue prosecution in federal court, but he got little
support from the Justice Department. In June 1885 the plaintiffs
withdrew their suit.32

The Loo Chang case sheds light on several questions concerning
the South's response to non-Caucasian groups. A number of histori-
ans have argued that the negative response of whites to the Chinese
grew largely from old established antiblack prejudices.33 Ronald Takaki,
one of the few historians to deal extensively with white atittudes
toward all non-white groups, agrees that "what whites did to one
racial group had direct consequences for others," and that "whites did
not artifically view each group in a vacuum." But Takaki also proposes
that while whites sometimes "lumped the different groups together,"
they also "counterpointed them against each other."34 Luther Spoehr
has also found the relationship between antiblack prejudice and anti-
Chinese prejudice to be more complicated than simple transferal.
Although he agrees that "on a high level of generalization, all forms of
racism may indeed be alike," he denies that attitudes are easily or
always transferable. Spoehr draws on John Higham's work to divide
racial thought into two categories: racial nationalism, emphasizing
cultural attributes, and racial naturalism, emphasizing biological at-

65

tributes. He argues that "positive sterotypes of the Chinese were
much more prevalent among whites than positive stereotypes of
blacks"; that the Chinese tended to be classified primarily by racial,
nationalist, or cultural criteria, while blacks were classified by linking
nationalism with racial naturalist or biological criteria. Spoehr con-
cludes that "views on the nature of the black men were so widely
shared and so firmly held that they amounted to a consensus, while
no stereotype of the Chinese was so nearly universal."35

The Loo Chang case supports theories that on the general level
there is an interchangeability of prejudice. Among the commonalities
of the white response to both blacks and Chinese were the ubiqui-
tious identification of distinct races by the terms "colored" and "China-
man;" the frequent use of demeaning epithets as "darky" or "dusky
sons of the soil" for the blacks and "pig-tailed Celestial" or "heathen
Chinee" for the Chinese; and consideration of both as a distinct,
immoral and dangerous people who threatened Caucasian purity.
But there is also evidence to support Spoehr's theory of various types
of stereotyping and Takaki's theory of racial counterpointing. The
Chinese were often identified as distinct from, and usually as racially
superior to, blacks. Even assessments such as that of the Augusta
paper that Chinese were "more dangerous" generally stemmed from
an idea that the Chinese were culturally superior to blacks and
therefore less malleable. Willie Loo Chang was deemed legally "not
colored" and allowed to marry a white woman. Despite some hostility,
he prospered in Richard County and apparently visited a few promi-
nent whites in the county as a personal friend. By adapting to white
customs he was marginally accepted in white society until he repre-
sented a viable threat. That biological inferiority was the white
Georgian's assessment of blacks is well-known. The Loo Chang case
indicates that views toward the Chinese were more ambivalent; that
such cultural considerations as healthen status and immorality were
more commonly involved in assessment than racial limitation.

This case also sheds some light on what attributes of new groups
most generated fear in the native population. Walter Nugent suggests
that the majority response may be "innocence and ignorance if no
outgroups were around" but that "ostracism or even violent assault"
could occur "if the outgroups appeared to threaten tranquil order or
community customs."36 Although there were only three Chinese in

66

Waynesboro, they did threaten order and custom in several funda-
mental ways. The non-Christian "heathen" stigma attached to any
Chinese person, which was not altogether eradicated by Willie Loo
Chang's conversion to Christianity, was particularly untenable in the
arch-Protestant South. His marriage to a white woman threatened the
dogma of Caucasian racial superiority and purity.

But undoubtedly economic competition was an even more compel-
ling threat. People are often pragmatic in their prejudices. When
Southern whites perceived economic advantages from Chinese
immigration, they supported it; when they felt threatened, they con-
demned it. In the Loo Chang case, it was those whites who were most
directly threatened that led the assault. Major William Wilkins was
typical of Southern merchants who established the "territorial mo-
nopolies" that Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch identify as dominat-
ing post-Civil War Southern mercantile relations. Such men, they
point out, established a sphere where they not only stifled all compe-
tition but also influenced "those economic, political, and social affairs
that interested" them. Outsiders coming in to open businesses that
threatened reduced prices could not be tolerated. New stores were
accepted only if they were founded "by local landowners or other men
with local family or business connections."37 Although Willie Loo
Chang did have some minimal help from a local in-law, he was most
definitely an outsider and was not tolerated. Finally, the Chinese
business relationship and apparent friendship with the town's black
population, who made up most of their clientele, threatened the most
tenaciously held Southern white norm control of the black popula-
tion.

The Loo Chang case also presents evidence as to why so few
Chinese immigrants came South despite extensive recruiting efforts.
It is almost certain that Chinese in other parts of the country were
aware of the Waynesboro incident. The Chinese minister to the
United States was actively involved in prosecuting the case. It was
reported or discussed on at least six occasions in The New York
Times and was also picked up by the London Times. This was not the
only example of violence perpetrated against the Chinese in the
South. At least two other incidents, the murder of a Chinese laundry-
man in Rome and harassment that apparently led to a lynching in
Harrisburg, also occured in Georgia in the 1880s.38 Such confronta-

67

tion was fairly common in Mississippi, the Southern state with the
largest Chinese population, especially when coolie workers protested
working conditions.39 Such violence was far more common and fre-
quently publicized in other parts of the country. But these incidents in
the South gave Chinese workers little reason to relocate in an area
already known as the most violent toward minorities in the country.

Late-nineteenth century Southern attitudes toward the Chinese
were uncertain often ambivalent. The section wanted to grow, di-
versify, industrialize; this demanded labor. The North fed its indus-
tries with immigrants, and many Southerners hoped to follow suit. In
the 1 880s the Atlanta, Augusta, and Waynesboro papers urged immi-
grants to come South. Planters joined industrialists in the campaign.
The South also wanted to retain good relations with China, which was
perceived as a major potential market for increased Southern produc-
tivity. But in the final analysis the section's racism outweighed its
demand for labor and markets, and the Chinese were increasingly
condemned as an alien group. The Loo Chang case serves as one
example of this Southern Sinophobia.

NOTES

1 Henry Grady and Dan Caldwell in Ronald T. Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th-
century America (New York, 1979), pp. 200-201 , 216.

2 C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge, 1951), p. 299.

3 Statistics of the Population of the United States at the Tenth Census (Washington, 1 883),
p. 56.

4 Gunter Barth, Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850-1870
(Cambridge, 1 964), p. 1 ; Stuart C. Miller, The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image
of the Chinese, 1785- 1882 (Berkeley, 1969), p. 15.

5 Miller, p. 92; "China and the Chinese", Southern Literary Messenger7 (1841), pp. 137-155.

6 Rowland T. Berthoff, "Southern Attitudes Toward Immigration, 1865-1914," The Journal of
Southern History 17 (1951), p. 328; Bert James Loewenberg, "Efforts of the South to
Encourage Immigration, 1865-1900," South Atlantic Quarterly 33 (October 1934), p. 365;
Barth pp. 1 88, 1 93-1 96; James L. Roark, Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the
Civil War and Reconstruction (New York, 1977), p. 166.

7 Frances Butler Leigh, Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War (London, 1883),
pp. 145-146.

8 Sylvia Krebs, "The Memphis Chinese Labor Convention of 1869," (unpublished paper), pp.
1-11.

9 De Bow's Review 6 (July, 1869), pp. 587-588. Steam power was gradually making the
water power of Northern factory streams and rivers obsoltete.

10 Leigh, p. 168.

11 Arnold Shankman, "Black on Yellow: Afro-Americans View Chinese-Americans, 1850-
1935," Phylon 39 (Spring 1978), pp. 6-9.

12 Sally Ken, "The Chinese Community of Augusta, Georgia from 1873-1971," Richmond
County History 4 (1972), p. 52.

68

13 Ibid, p. 53; James W. Loewen, The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White
(Cambridge, 1971), p. 2.

14 Takaki, pp. 220-229. Takaki points out that Harte bemoaned the racial hostility that his
poem generated.

15 Mary Coolidge, Chinese Immigration (New York, 1909), pp. 15-25; Carey McWilliams,
Brothers Under the Skin (Boston, 1951), pp. 97-104; Miller, p. 189.

16 U.S. Congressional Record, 47th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1882, pp. 1639-1642, 1984.

17 Joseph H. Parks, Joseph E. Brown of Georgia (Baton Rouge, 1977), p. 548; Atlanta
Constitution, March 10, 19, 21, 1982; Patrick J. Hearden, Independence and Empire: The
NewSouth's Cotton Mill Campaign, 1865-1901 (Dekalb, Illinois, 1982), pp. 56-57.

18 Atlanta Constitution, February 1 , April 5, 1882.

19 Chronicle (Augusta), February 12, March 15, 1882.

20 True-Citizen (Waynesboro), April 12, 1882.

21 Miller, p. 202.

22 Burke County, Georgia: Health, Happiness, Prosperity (Waynesboro, 1921); True-Citizen,
July 14, 21, 1882.

23 Ibid, July 28, August 18, September 8, 15, 1882, January 12, 26, 1883; (Waynesboro),
January 31, 1883.

24 S.A. Darnell to Benjamin Harris Brewster, February 14, 1883, Justice Department Rec-
ords, Record Group 60, National Archives (hereafter cited as NA). Harrisburg is identified
as a small town in Richmond County in Marion R. Hemperly, Cities, Towns, and Communi-
ties of Georgia Between 1847-1862, 8,500 Places and the County in Which Located
(Easley, S.C., 1980), p. 66. The town no longer exists. I found no other reference to the
Harrisburg Chinese incident.

25 Darnell to Brewster, February 14, 1883, Justice Department Records; Willie Loo Chang v.
William A. Wilkins, Robert Neely, et ai, Southern District of Georgia, case 607, 1883,
Justice Department Records, RG 60, NA.

26 Herald-Expositor, February 7, June 20, July 4, August 15, 1883.

27 True-Citizen, February 2, 9, March 23, 1883.

28 Atlanta Constitution, February 3, 10, 1883.

29 The New York Times, March 10, April 1 , May 28, June 12, 21 , 1883.

30 True-Citizen, June 15, 1883.

31 Minutes, Superior Court, Burke County, Georgia, 1880-1884, p. 491; True-Citizen, May
25,1883.

32 Darnell to Brewster, March 27, 1884, Justice Department Records; Chang v. Wilkins,
Justice Department Records, RG 60, NA. The plaintiff's withdrawal of the suit was written
on the original petition.

33 Alexander Saxton, The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in
California (Berkeley, 1 971 ); Robert F. Heizer and Alan J. Almquist, The Other Californians:
Prejudice and Discrimination under Spain, Mexico, and the United States to 1920 (Berkeley ,
1970).

34 Takaki, p. xiv.

35 Luther Spoehr, "Sambo and the Heathen Chinee: California's Racial Stereotypes in the
Late 1870's," Pacific Historical Review 42 (May, 1973), pp. 185-204.

36 Walter T.K. Nugent, From Centennial to World War: American Society, 1876-1917
(Indianapolis, 1977), p.46.

37 Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Conse-
quences of Emancipation (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 126-127, 140.

38 Roger Aycock, All Roads to Rome (Roswell, Georgia, 1981), pp. 227-233. A black man
was hanged for the murder of Joe Lee, the Chinese laundryman.

39 Loewen, pp. 30-31.

69

The Historical Experience:
Georgians in East Asia

71

John Elliot Ward:
A Georgia Elitist in the Celestial Empire, 1858-60

WILLIAM M. GABARD*

Nineteenth-century America's rich agricultural production, nascent
industrial system, and flourishing commerce which took Yankee
clippers to Asia encouraged the belief that Protestant Christianity
was destined by God, like the nation, to expand to non-Christians,
particularly in Asia. While twentieth century cynics may deprecate
religious missionary motives, they cannot ignore what was a dy-
namic, sincere, albeit perhaps misguided, desire by Americans to
take the message of Christianity and "Progress" to the "heathens"
of the world. If domestic concern with slavery disturbed the American
conscience, good works among non-Christians would salve it.

It is the purpose of this paper to ascertain the true objectives and
behavior of John Elliot Ward, a Georgian who was his country's first
official envoy to Peking (Beijing). John Elliot Ward was affected by
the religious climate of the nation, the South, and especially
Savannah's Bishop Stephen Elliott's Episcopal Church during the
period 1840-60. The revival movements of the nineteenth century
motivated Episcopalians with a passionate missionary zeal at home
and abroad to assume the responsibility later popularized as "white
man's burden." Endowed with wealth, class status, and superior

*Dr. Gabard is Professor of History and Director of International Studies Emeritus at Valdosta
State College, Valdosta, Georgia, where he began teaching in 1948. He received his Ph.D.
from Tulane University in 1963 and published "John Elliot Ward and the Treaty of Tientsin,"
in West Georgia College Studies in the Social Sciences 1 1 (June 1972), pp. 26-44. He has
served on the Boards of Trustees of the China Council of Georgia and of the Southern Center
for International Studies, on the Board of Directors of the Japan-America Society of Georgia,
and as Vice President of the Georgia Historical Society.

72

educational and cultural advantages, Ward and his co-religionists felt
an inevitability and permanence of the spread of "Western Civiliza-
tion." The people in Ward's social group were as sincere as they
were zealous in carrying Christianity, commerce, and civilization to
the "heathen" in fulfillment of a moral responsibility. Committed indi-
viduals were willing to sacrifice riches, luxuries, ease, and even life,
to attain their goals. Against this background, Ward, like his prede-
cessor William B. Reed, the first United States envoy-extroordinary
to China, who was never able to reach Peking, could feel a sense of
the Divine in his diplomatic mission.

Nor could Ward escape the arguments of the advocates of an
intensified, expanded American commerce with China. If commerce
was king, as the Reverend William Stevens of Savannah observed,
its expansion to Asia, and to China in particular, was highly desirable.
The successful United States-China trade had been inaugurated in
direct voyages from the Eastern Seaboard in 1783, was carried on
principally by the sleek Yankee clippers, and rivalled the China trade
of Great Britain. By 1 859, Hunt's, a leading commercial journal, could
report that Americans were importing annually from China twenty
million pounds of tea, an abundance of silk, and other commodities
for a total of slightly over $82 million.1 Hunt's could see the "alleged
antipathy of the Chinese to intercourse with foreigners in a state of
change." Possibilities for significant increase in the American trade
with China seemed enormous.2

To the South, in particular, the prospect for commercial growth
raised hopes of an emancipation from economic dependence upon
the North. "In all civilized nations," a Southern newspaper observed,
"political power has followed the sceptre of commerce." In order to
release the South from its agriculturism and economic dependence
upon the North, the South was urged to build up port cities as
distributing centers for imported items and the general stimulation of
trade to balance agriculturism.3 As a case in point, Savannah's trade
for 1859 totaled $16 million, with imports representing less than $1
million.4 That trade with China could be significant was shown by the
arrival in New York harbor in early 1861 of the ship Phantom from
Shanghai. Described as carrying "one of the most valuable cargoes
ever imported into this country from China," the ship's cargo approxi-
mated $900,000, consisting mostly of silks.5

73

The admission of California as a state in 1850, her rapid growth of
wealth and population because of the gold rush, the trans-isthmian
railroad, the plans for transcontinental railroads, and the acquisition
of Pacific islands, all offered Americans a chance to challenge the
supremacy of England's trade with China. The opening of Japan in
1853-54, coupled with the China trade, offered Americans possibili-
ties which staggered the imagination. After the United States negoti-
ated its Treaty of Tientsin with China in 1858, which provided for the
opening of additional treaty ports, the right of consuls to reside at
Chinese ports, and other expanded commercial privileges, visions of
an expanded trade as well as missionary activity seemed unlimited.
Members of Congress, clerics, agriculturalists, manufacturers, and
captains were enthusiastic at the prospects offered to Americans
under their Tientsin Treaty. Britons and Frenchmen were equally
enthusiastic about similar provisions included in their 1858 Tientsin
treaties with China.6

John Elliott Ward's mission to China was chiefly to exchange
ratifications of the Sino-American Treaty of Tientsin. The agreement
had been negotiated by Reed in 1858 and had been ratified, with one
dissenting vote, by the United States Senate on December 1 5, 1 858,
the same day on which Ward's ministerial appointment was ap-
proved.7 That the United States, unlike England and France, had not
been at war with China, proved the efficacy, according to President
Buchanan, of "peaceful negotiations and the wisdom of our neutral-
ity" in respect to China.8

John Elliot Ward had been born October 2, 1814, near Savannah,
into a family with strong roots in the Puritan and Presbyterian faiths,
where duty, morality, industry, and religious devotion were stressed.
After studying at Massachusetts' Amherst College, which was swept
by revivalism in 1831 , Ward returned to his rural plantation home and
affiliated with the Midway Church, a bastion of Calvinistic strength in
coastal Georgia. After he moved to Savannah, he became a member
of St. John's Episcopal Church. Ward was an intimate friend of
Stephen Elliott, rector of St. John's and Bishop of the Episcopal
Diocese of Georgia. Ward's close association with Bishop Elliott
added to Ward's awareness about China. Elliott's brother-in-law was
William Boone, who served as first Missionary Bishop of the Ameri-
can Episcopal Church in China from 1844 until his death in 1864.9

74

Intelligent, tolerant, mild in disposition, a believer in moderation
and compromise, a man of impeccable integrity who was able to play
an important role as mediator in the Democratic Party's bitter fratri-
cidal wars and yet earn the respect of all factions these were the
personal qualities which Ward possessed. Although he had not
travelled abroad, his marriage alliance with a Bostonian, his promi-
nent role in national politics and issues, his close relationships with
Eastern commercial and shipping families, such as the Lows and
Habershams of Savannah, his long-time associations with world-
wide clerics like Elliott and Boone and with well-travelled naval
officers such as John Kell and Josiah Tattnall all of these experi-
ences prepared Ward for his China mission.10

Ward's mission was to exchange ratifications of the Treaty of
Tientsin, to seek permanent residence for an American ambassador
at Beijing, and to conclude consular aggreements with the Celestial
Empire. When William B. Reed prepared to return home from China,
he wrote the President to send a "first-rate man" for the Beijing
assignment, which he characterized as a "most delicate and interest-
ing one."11 Savannah, Georgia, Mayor John Elliott Ward in the late
1850s was named Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
to China by President James Buchanan in gratitude for Ward's help
to him in securing the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in
1856. Although this appointment was a political favor, Ward's ap-
pointment earned hearty approbation and and promised to carry out
the President's belief, as outlined in his annual message to Congress
in 1858, that California's "peculiar geographical position, and the
recent conclusion of treaties with China and Japan, two rich and
populous empires," would attract American interest, enterprise, and
capital which could lead to American wealth and power in East
Asia.12 The New York Journal of Commerce endorsed Ward and
noted that he enjoyed a "reputation extending far beyond the borders
of his own State."13 John Elliott Ward met the requirements; his
appointment produced no criticism or opposition.

Ward's mission should be viewed in the context of mid-nineteenth
century U.S. history. During the nineteenth century, the United States,
flushed with the success of an expansionist territorial policy, had
attained through war, treaty agreement, and purchase the fulfillment
of her continental boundaries, reaching from the Atlantic to the

75

Pacific Oceans. Denied by her Monroe Doctrine from involvement in
European affairs, and peopled by a fecund populace augmented with
a steady stream of immigrants, the United States developed a dy-
namic expansionistic policy during the 1 840s and 1 850s which boldly
proposed purchase or annexation of Cuba and other Latin American
areas; commercial treaties with China, Japan, and Siam (Thailand);
claims upon vital Pacific islands; and "opening" the "hermit kingdom"
of Korea. This brash, imaginative foreign policy supported such
auxiliary projects as trans-isthmian and transcontinental railroads,
and coexisted with the suppression of Indians, ongoing argument
over slavery, divisive political realignments, and major social and
economic problems. Such a foreign policy could only occur, accord-
ing to the beliefs of many Americans, in a nation favored by God, who
had given her a Manifest Destiny to fulfill. Ebullient, supremely
confident, vigorous, enthusiastic, and endowed beyond belief with
Nature's resources, the American people, who had given the world a
new concept of government, earnestly wanted to share, or impose,
its richness of life upon less fortunate people.

John Elliott Ward left Savannah in January 1859.14 By mid-March
Ward was in Paris, where he was presented to Emperor Napoleon III
and conversed with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs about
China. In Lyons, on March 25, 1859, Ward had a "satisfactory
interview" with William B. Reed, who warned his successor that the
latter might have "some difficulty" in reaching Beijing."15 The U.S.
steam frigate Powhatan, commanded by Commodore Josiah Tattnall,
Ward's close friend, was ordered to Singapore to meet Ward. Ward
reached Hong Kong on May 1 0 and spent several days receiving and
returning calls from foreign diplomats before proceeding to Shang-
hai.16 There Ward was a guest in the residence of Augustine Heard
and Company, the second largest American mercantile-commission
house in China. George W. Heard, Jr. and Ward's brother Wallace
served as legation secretaries. When Ward went to present his
official credentials to the Chinese commissioners who had negoti-
ated the Tientsin treaty with Reed, Ward was accompanied by an
escort of American marines in a long procession which was "well
received, and entertained with refreshments and also by a salute
from a four pounder." During the next few days, Ward visited Ameri-
can and British residents and naval officers and officials in Shanghai

76

and received many guests aboard the Powhatan.^7

Ward's meeting with the Chinese commissioners also included the
Reverend Samuel Wells Williams, who had been the acting U.S.
charge d'affaires since Reed's departure, and the Reverend W.A.P.
Martin, who served as interpreter. Williams recorded that the Chi-
nese representatives offered "no objections to our going to Peking.
Nothing seemed further from their minds than the possibility of any
trouble in our negotiations this year."18

The Chinese requested that Ward accompany British and French
envoys going to Beijing to exchange ratifications of their treaties.
However, details of the French and British treaties were still under
negotiation. Ward therefore decided to unilaterally proceed to Beijing
in order to try to comply with the instructions of the U.S. Secretary of
State and with the proviso within the Sino-American treaty that
ratifications be exchanged before June 18, 1859. Aboard the Pow-
hatan, with the Toeywan in tow, Ward and his entourage sailed north
to the mouth of the Bei Ho (Peiho) River, there hoping to land and
proceed immediately to Beijing for the formal exchange of ratifica-
tions of the U.S. Treaty of Tientsin, as provided in the treaty itself.

On June 25, at the mouth of the Bei Ho, Ward and Tattnall
witnessed the unsuccessful effort of an Anglo-French naval expedi-
tion to force its way up the Bei Ho past the heavily-fortified Dagu
(Taku) forts. This effort resulted in the repulse of the British and
French with heavy losses. Although Ward and Tattnall originally
intended to remain neutral, Commodore Tattnall's towing of a help-
less British flagship from the line of fire, his visit across the line of fire
to the wounded British Admiral Hope, and his troop's shooting at the
Chinese from a British gunboat at Dagu led to charges of violation of
neutrality from some of Ward's mission and from the Chinese. Al-
though the acts may have violated the letter of the law, Ward and
Tattnall defended them as acts of humanity and as reciprocity for
services Hope's forces had rendered to U.S. ships on June 24.
Tattnall's alleged expression that "blood is thicker than water" gave
rise among some writers to the notion that Ward and Tattnall, as
Southerners, saw the Sino-Anglo-French conflict as a racial war and
wished to help their white Anglo-Saxon brothers. Ward's violation of
U.S. neutrality might well have jeopardized his mission. But he was
determined to continue to Beijing as if nothing unusual had hap-

77

pened.

Because Ward had been instructed by President Buchanan and
Secretary of State Lewis Cass to exchange the treaty ratifications as
soon as possible and to maintain a strict neutrality, Ward decided to
leave the Dagu war zone and go overland to Beijing from Beitany
(Pei-t'ang), a port approximately ten miles north of Dagu. This spe-
cific overland routing had been suggested by Chinese commission-
ers whom Ward had met at Beitang on July 3. On July 20, 1859,
Ward and his party left Beitang for Beijing. In conformity with an
Imperial Edict of July 1 4, Ward's party entered Beijing in mule carts, a
form of conveyance traditionally reserved for tribute bearers, rather
than by the more respectable conveyance of sedan chairs. Ward,
Lieutenant Trenchard, and several other Powhatan officers reached
Beijing about July 27 and were sequestered while discussions were
held concerning the possibility of an imperial audience. Although
Ward received an autographed letter from the Emperor, Sino-Ameri-
can negotiations bogged down over Ward's refusal to kowtow, or
prostrate himself, before the Emperor. After several days of haggling,
the Americans left Beijing in disgust. Ratifications of the U.S. Tientsin
Treaty were exchanged at Beitang in a brief ceremony before Ward
reboarded the Powhatan.

Ward's routing, mode of travel, sequestration in Beijing, and failure
to see the Emperor produced controversy among Chinese and west-
erners alike. To the Chinese, diplomatic residence in Beijing, insisted
upon in the Treaties of Tientsin, had been a most humiliating conces-
sion. The fifth article of the American Treaty specified only that the
American minister should be able to confer in Beijing with a Grand
Secretary or any other designated official of equal rank. Ward, how-
ever, on instructions from the U.S. Secretary of State and President,
desired to go to Beijing for the exchange of ratifications at the earliest
time and to press for a permanent U.S. ministerial residence in that
capital city. The Chinese limitation of his party to twenty; their insis-
tence upon the use of mule-drawn carts customarily assigned to
those carrying tribute to the Chinese emperor; their concern for
Ward's refusal to kowtow; their fear of collusion among the "barbari-
ans," thereby preventing the Americans from seeing the Russians in
Beijing all of these alleged "humiliations" to Ward and his party
resulted from the importance Beijing attached to the nature of these

78

embassies, especially in view of the Bei Ho hostilities. Fears well-
founded or imagined over possible military invasion, collusion be-
tween Russian and American barbarians, and the imposition of alien
practices upon the Chinese provoked the Chinese response to
America's initial diplomatic mission to Beijing. Given the fact that
Ward and Tattnall had compromised U.S. neutrality at Dagu, Ward
was fortunate to accomplish his purposes with no more discourtesy
from the Chinese than he received.19

Ward's journey to Beijing involved, according to his Occidental
critics, the acceptance of humiliating conditions imposed by the
Chinese government officials to prevent fulfillment of a particularly
onerous provision of the Treaties of Tientsin. One of Ward's interpret-
ers, the Reverend W.A.P. Martin, believed that because Ward wished
to do something "great and good" for China, he erred in accepting the
mule carts. Martin wrote two sarcastic, critical letters to the London
Times about the envoy and the mission's "quasi imprisonment" at
Beijing.20 The British and the French, who resented Ward's unilateral
journey to Beijing, generally ridiculed the American minister. Lord
Loch reported that Ward "thought he would gain by diplomacy what
Mr. Bruce [the English minister] had failed to get by force [at Dagu]."
Blackwood's ridiculed Ward's "triumphal entry into Peking in a cart,
his close confinement, the attempt to make him worship the Emperor,
[and] the insult of ordering him back to the seashore for a worthless
ratification." Another European account referred to "the great Ameri-
can minster" being carried "in state" in a mule cart. The French
minister also wrote disparagingly of the American mission; he be-
lieved that Ward had been subjected to numerous indignities which
indicated little progress in China's relations with the Western powers.
Punch and The Illustrated London News subjected Ward to merciless
ridicule. The former published a malicious, satirical poem entitled
"Jonathan's Ride to Peking," in which the Americans reportedly rode
"like blacks in a nigger car, ready to eat humble pie" when seeking
dollars. L'illustration called the expedition "a defeat no less disas-
trous than that of the allies before Tuku." The journal did commend
Ward's refusal to kowtow before the Emperor, praising his "dignity of
character."21

Many people considered grossly unjust the criticism heaped upon
John Elliott Ward. His wife attributed it to a typical characteristic of

79

the English, whom she regarded as "the most arrogant people on the
face of the earth."22 Many American newspapers attributed the An-
glo-French criticism to jealousy over American accomplishment of
treaty ratification without resort to force and to Anglo-French humili-
ation over their defeat by China at Dagu. The New York Times
applauded Ward's behavior in accepting "the professions of good-will
made to him by the Chinese authorities with frank and high bred
equanimity." It further remarked that the United States would "experi-
ence no more practical inconvenience from the sublime vanity of the
Court of Peking than from the self-conceit of dozens of small German
dukes and Central Asiatic shahs." The newspaper observed that the
United States could "honorably leave" the Anglo-French to force their
way "over thousands of human bodies trampling under foot the most
sacred convictions of a great people." In brief, Ward's peaceful
accomplishment of his mission and his patient, tolerant consideration
of cultural sensitivity proved to be more successful than that of the
Anglo-French "arrogant and overbearing envoys in precipitating a
most lamentable and superfluous catastrophe." The American treaty,
unlike the Anglo-French treaties, was "in full vigor and force" due to
Ward's action.23

The London Star observed of Ward's visit that it was "certainly
humiliating to England to find the United States so successfully
negotiating treaties with China, while she herself, in alliance with
France, had failed.24 The Austrian Gazette endorsed Ward's peaceful
approaches to Beijing as opposed to the Anglo-French use of force.
The Gazette wondered how England would feel if a Russian force
appeared at the mouth of the Thames with an envoy backed by naval
squadron. England and France respected nationalities in Europe but,
in forcing trade and envoys upon China, used a policy of "Rascals,
you must like us, you must trade with us."25 In deploring the use of
British force in China, Lord Greville wrote that "it required no sagacity
to perceive that the arrival at Peking of a victorious ambassador, who
had forced his way to the capital at the head of an imposing force,
would not serve to make his reception a friendly one, or to establish
harmonious relationships" between China and England.26 Ward's
accomplishment of his principal aim, then, far outweighed, many
believed, any inconveniences or minor slights. Moreover, a proud
man and a proud nation could afford to be tolerant.

80

The former American charge d'affaires in China, the Reverend
Samuel Wells Williams, who accompanied Ward from Shanghai to
Beitang to Beijing as one of the legation's secretaries, believed that
the Manchu (Qing) dynasty rulers feared that troops accompanying
Western envoys into China might overthrow the Qings, as they
themselves had overthrown the Chinese in 1644 when invited to
Beijing to assist in the ouster of a usuper to the Ming dynasty throne.
A longtime resident of China, Williams called the initial interview with
Chinese officials friendly. "The officials have," he recorded, "exerted
themselves more than I have ever known on a previous occasion to
give eclat and parade to this reception." And he rebuked the Anglo-
French for failure to avail themselves of a similar peaceful venture
rather than resort to arms. The Chinese, he lamented, were "doomed
never to be allowed to make their own plans or carry out their own
views."

In contrast, John Elliot Ward did defer to the sensitivities of the
Chinese in the delicate diplomacy concerning the route, modes of
conveyance, and size of the official party, and showed respect for
opposing views. The mission of twenty, in deference to Chinese
wishes, included only three military officers and three marines. The
small group, as Williams noted received "politeness and courtesy."
Williams noted that, since Ward had never demanded an audience
with the Emperor and was in Beijing upon invitation rather than by
treaty right, he enjoyed a decided advantage upon the kowtow issue.
In turn, the Chinese conducted their argument with "tact and pa-
tience." Williams commended Ward for his patience, tact, firmness of
conviction, and willingness to compromise throughout the entire
mission. The legation secretary defended the use of the mule carts.
He believed that the Emperor's comment about Ward's mission
published in Beijing's gazette marked the first time that a foreign
nation was not designated i, signifying "barbarian," by the paper, and
called it a "moderate" statement. Williams was genuinely disturbed
that Hong Kong newspapers discredited Ward's visit to Beijing. "It is
sad to see," he also wrote, "the bitterness of these papers against the
Chinese," against whom the papers urged "a good thrashing." Wil-
liams especially lamented the severe judgement that the Chinese
were "pagans" and could not be held to "Christian" practices. The
secretary declared that he wrote the details of Ward's mission to

81

correct exaggerated and critical accounts given in England and
France.27

Another member of Ward's entourage, the Reverend William
Aitchison, a China resident for many years who served as interpreter,
was seriously concerned about the effect of Sinowestern hostilities at
the mouth of the Bei Ho upon Christian missions in China. "Oh, when
will the Prince of Peace extend his peaceful sway over the earth and
the nations learn war no more!" he exclaimed. Pleased with what he
saw as an American policy of peace, he felt that the "chariots" used
were satisfactory, the Chinese military escort colorful and attentive,
the food sumptuous, and the Chinese hosts "worthy of respect and
affection." He also approved Ward's refusal to kowtow. Aitchison felt
that "the kindness we have received could not be well surpassed. All
the arrangements proved their desire to gratify our tastes in every
particular." Moreover, Aitchison, the clergyman, rejoiced that on July
31, 1859, Christian services were conducted without interference in
"this mighty capital, beneath the shadow of a throne, whose occupant
rules over one-third of the human race!" With Ward and Williams he
spent two hours in reading aloud and discussing the first epistle of
Timothy. Then the group sang such missionary hymns as "From
Greenland's Icy Mountains to India's Coral Sea." No doubt Ward
could feel that he was carrying out the hymn's admonition to carry the
Gospel to "the heathen."28

Resident American merchants gave Ward their "cordial support
and approval" for the "able and energetic manner in which you
supported the dignity of our country, the successful ratification of our
treaty and its speedy promulgation, events alike honorable to your-
self and to us as your countrymen." The merchants, who often
favored more aggressive policies toward China, strongly endorsed
Ward's support of Tattnall's assistance to the Anglo-French and
commended the Commodore's gallantry.29 The favorable views of
the Americans were even more significant when one considers the
usual view of merchants that treaties with the Chinese needed to be
backed up with military force.30

In his official despatches to the State Department, Ward indicated
that he was reasonably pleased with the outcome of his mission.
After the signing of the official receipt for the ratification of the
American treaty at Beitang on August 16, 1859, Ward reported that

82

he was received there "with every mark of respect."31 Privately, he
believed that the aggressive Anglo-French methods used at the
mouth of the Bei Ho complicated his mission. He acknowledged that
Tattnall had perhaps violated "strict neutrality" there, but he observed
that the Commodore's behavior did more "to illustrate the gallantry of
the American Navy in the eyes of the world than twenty successful
engagements would have done." Ward defended his unilateral deci-
sion to go to Beijing:

I frankly told the Admiral [Hope] that my position was differ-
ent from that of the English and French Ministers; that their
treaties were made at a time when they were at war with the
Chinese; and that if their treaties were violated, they might
consider themselves thrown back into the war which had
been terminated or suspended by the treaty; that the Ameri-
can treaty, on the contrary, had been made with a nation
with whom we had never been at war.32

At home President Buchanan praised his appointee's behavior in
China. Ward, a distinguished citizen of Georgia, he declared, was
unable to present to the Emperor his letter of credence "in conse-
quence of his very proper refusal to submit to the humiliating ceremo-
nies required by this strange people in approaching their sovereign."
Buchanan endorsed the exchange of ratifications of the treaty at
Beitang and noted that, throughout the entire negotiations, the Chi-
nese "appear to have acted in good faith and in a friendly spirit
towards the United States. It is true that this has been done after their
own fashion; but we ought to regard it with a lenient eye. The conduct
of our minister has received my entire approbation."33 So pleased
was one Georgian with Ward's accomplishments in China that he
seriously proposed the longtime Democratic Unionist as the Party's
logical 1860 Presidential standard-bearer.34

By late August 1859, Ward and his legation had returned aboard
the Powhatan to Shanghai, where he received "with great pomp and
ceremony" the Emperor's reply to President Buchanan's official letter
which accompanied the American ratification documents.35 After
opening negotiations for the implementation of the treaty's provisions
for the opening of two additional ports and for the revision of tonnage
duties, Ward sailed on September 18 with Tattnall to Japan for a
month's visit. Back in Shanghai, Ward issued a November 8, 1859

83

proclamation regarding the publication of the U.S. Treaty of Tientsin
"for the general guidance of all to whom it may concern." He then
went to Hong Kong, Guangzhou (Canton), and Macao, where he
permitted Chinese authorities to remove 317 coolies from an Ameri-
can ship.36 Ward advised Congressional action to suppress the "in-
iquitous" coolie traffic which "deeply grieved" him. In April 1 860, when
the Chinese ports of Fuzhou and Shantou were opened to U.S.
commerce in accordance with the U.S. Tientsin Treaty, Ward and the
Commodore of the U.S. East India Squadron paid an official visit to
Shantou, met with newly-appointed U.S. consuls, and assured them
of continued U.S. military protection and support.37

As early as July 1859, Ward had expressed his desire to return to
the United States in early I860.38 He actually departed in December
1860, after witnessing what he perceived as a shameful Anglo-
French re-invasion of North China. In desperation, the Emperor had
authorized his officials to urge Ward to mediate with France and
England. In reply, Ward, sympathetic with the Chinese, wrote that
because of the United States' neutrality, he was unable to discuss
"the crooked and straight, right or wrong" issues between China and
the Anglo-French.39 When the Emperor's attempt at mediation failed,
England and France marched into Beijing, sacked the summer Pal-
ace, and forced the flight of the Emperor to secure ratification of the
Anglo-French 1858 Tientsin Treaties. They wrung additional privi-
leges from China in the October 1860 Convention of Peking.

John Elliot Ward had spent two years as Minister to China during a
critical period in that country's history. He returned to Washington in
time to submit his report to the State Department before the outbreak
of the American Civil War. Upon returning to Georgia he served the
Confederacy on missions to Europe, and also sojourned in China for
unclear reasons from late 1863 to the fall of 1865. He later moved
with his family to New York, where he was a Wall Street lawyer until
his death on November 29, 1902. In 1896, when Chinese Foreign
Minister Li Hongzhzng (Li Hung-chang) visited New York City, it was
Ward, the senior American China diplomat, who sat to the right of the
senior Chinese statesman at the official banquet and offered the
principal toast.40

John Elliott Ward's mission to China was brief but important. In an
extremely critical period for China, he brought to Sino-American

84

relations those personal qualities and attitudes which were essential
for amicable relations between the two nations. In large measure, his
mission presaged the later American "Open Door Policy." Ward's
mission laid the groundwork for his successor, Anson Burlingame,
who successfully established an American legation in Beijing in July
1 862. Faced with a difficult, sensitive diplomatic situation and diamet-
rically opposing views for solution, Ward, as a representative of the
peculiar elitist society of Georgia, had displayed firmness of purpose
and dignity coupled with genuine concern and compassion for oth-
ers.

NOTES

1"China: Its Trade," Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review 41 (October
1859), p.444.

2 Ibid, p.439-40

^Courier (Charleston, S.C.), quoted in the Augusta, Georgia, Daily Constitutionalist, March
24, 1859 and April 1, 1860.

4Hunt's Merchant's Magazine 42 (November 1860), p. 61 4.

5The New York Times, February 11,1 861 .

6Wen-hwan Ma, American Policy Toward China, as Revealed in the Debates of Congress
(New York, 1970), pp.1 8-31 , passim.

7The New York Tribune, December 16, 1858; Richardson Dougall and Mary P. Chapman,
United States Chiefs of Mission, 1778-1973 (Washington, 1973), p. 28.

8The New York Times, December 7, 1858.

9For further information of Bishops Elliott and Boone, see: Hermon Batterson, Sketch-Book
of the American Episcopate (Philadelphia, 1878), pp.1 30-31 and 146-47; Doris Kirk
Collins, The Episcopal Church in Georgia from the Revolutionary War to 1860 (Ann Arbor,
1961), pp. 17-31; James Thayer Addison, The Episcopal Church in the United States,
1789-1931 (New York, 1951), pp. 150-51; and Albert Sydney Thomas, A Historical
Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, 1820- 1 957 (Columbia, S.C,
1957), pp. 24-29, 39, 438. For information on Ward's life, see "John Elliott Ward," in
Dictionary of American Biography, ed. by Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, XIX (New
York, 1928-1958), pp. 426-27; United States Diplomatic Officers, 1789-1939 I, p. 1027;
and William M. Gabard, "The Confederate Career of John Elliott Ward," The Georgia
Historical Quarterly 55 (Summer 1971), pp.1 77-207. For more information regarding
Georgia's elite of the mid-nineteenth century, the writer has drawn upon the following
Georgia family manuscript collections: Bulloch Papers, Gordon Papers, W.R.B. Elliott
Papers, Mackay-Stiles Collection, Arnold Appleton Papers, and Alexander H. Lawton
Papers, Southern Historical Collections, University of North Carolina; the John Mcintosh
Kell Papers and Josiah Tattnall, Jr. Letters, Manuscript Department, Duke University; and
The Charles Colcock Jones Papers in the Manuscript Collections at Duke and Tulane
Universities and The University of Georgia, which provided the basis for Robert Manson
Myers, Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War (New Haven, 1 972).
Manuscript collections at the University of Georgia, Georgia State Department of Archives,
Emory University, and The Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, provided additional in-
formation. In addition, the writer has talked with and interviewed numerous descendants of
the families listed above, particularly in Savannah.

85

10Based upon a close examination of all information about Ward and correspondence and
interviews with his descendants. See also John Mcintosh Kell, Recollections of a Naval
Life (Washington, 1900), p. 65, and Charles C. Jones, Jr., The Life and Services of
Commodore Josiah Tattnall (Savannah, 1878), pp. 74-78.

11W.B. Reed to President James Buchanan, September 2, 1858, in United States Depart-
ment of State, Despatches from U.S. Ministers to China, 1843-1906, National Archives,
Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Despatches, China.)

12President Buchanan's 2nd Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1858, in The
Works of James Buchanan, ed. by John Bassett Moore, I (Philadelphia, 1908-1912), p.
273.

13As quoted in the Federal Union, December 7, 1858.

14 Daily Morning News (Savannah), January 17, 1859.

15J.E. Ward to Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, March 17, and 26, 1859, in Despatches,
China.

16See James D. Johnson, China and Japan (Baltimore, 1861), pp. 208-11, and Charles
Colcock Jones, Jr., The Life and Services of Commodore Josiah Tattnall, pp. 77-82.

17Stephen Chapman Lockwood, Augustine Heard and Company, 1858-1862 (Cambridge,
Mass., 1971), pp. 71-72; William F. Graff, A Cruise in the U.S. Steam-Frigate Mississippi
(Boston, 1860) pp. 60-651; and Johnston, China and Japan, pp. 224-27.

18Entry in Journal of S.W. Williams, May 31 , 1859, in Frederic Wells Williams, The Life and
Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, L.L.D., Missionary, Diplomatist, Sinologue (New York,
1889), p. 297, (hereafter cited as Williams, Life.)

19For a detailed account of the Bei Ho affair and the American mission to Beijing, see:
William M. Gabard, "John Elliott Ward and the Treaty of Tientsin," West Georgia College
Studies in the Social Sciences 11 (June 1972), pp. 26-44; "The Fight on the Peiho,"
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 86 (December 1859), 647-67; S. Wells Williams, "Visit
of the American Embassy to Peking," The Ecclectic Magazine 51 (April 1 861 ), 529-37, and
52 (May 1861), 53-63; Williams, Life, pp. 299-325; W.A.P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay {New
York, 1896), pp.1 90-203 and The Awakening of China (New York, 1907), pp. 166-69;
Charles P. Bush, ed., Five Years in China (Philadelphia, 1865); J.W. Foster, American
Diplomacy in the Orient (Boston, 1914), pp 245-55; Hosea Ballou Morse, The International
Relations of the Chinese Empire: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (Shanghai, 1910), pp.
471-87; Earl Swisher, China's Management of the American Barbarians: A Study of Sino-
American Relations, 1841-1861, with Documents (New Haven, Conn., 1951), pp. 571-623
Henri Cordier, L'Expedition de China de 1860 (Paris, 1906), pp. 86-92, and 246-53
Masataka Banno, China and the West, 1858-1861 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 1 10-26
and J.E. Ward's official reports to the Secretary of State for June, July, and August, 1859,
in Despatches, China. For more information on the various Chinese officials and their roles
in the Bei Ho affair and Ward's mission, see biographical articles in Eminent Chinese of the
Ching Period, 1644-1912, ed. by Arthur W. Hummel (Taipei, 1964), passim.

20W.A.P. Martin, The Awakening of China, p. 168, and A Cycle of Cathay, pp. 196-201, and
letters to The Times (London), August 10 and 30, 1859.

21 Henry Brougham Loch, Personal Narratives during Lord Elgin's Second Embassy (Lon-
don, 1903), pp. 16-17; "The Fight on the Peiho," Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 86
(December 1 859), p. 653; Robert Swinhoe, Narrative of the North China Campaign of 1860
(London, 1861), pp. 163-64; Letter of M. DeBourboulon to the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
September 1 , 1859, in Henri Cordier, L'Expedition de China de 1857-58 (Paris, 1905), pp.
87-92, Punch 27 (October 5, 1859), p.432, and (December 3, 1859), 520; L 'Illustration 34
(November 12, 1859), 338.

22Louisa B. Ward to Louisa Bulloch, October 13, 1859, in Bulloch Papers.

86

"See The New York Times, October 1 1 , 12, 13, 21 , 22, and November 16, 18, 1859.

!4As quoted in The Chronicle and Sentinel (Augusta, Georgia), November 1 1 , 1859.

-5As quoted in The New York Times, October 13, 1859.

-6Lytton Strachey and Roger Fulford, eds. The Greville Memoirs (7 vols., London, 1938) VII,
p.439.

?7See: S.W. Williams, Life and Letters, pp. 301 , 31 4, 31 8, 323; the same writer's two articles
on "The Visit fo the American Embassy," in the April and May, 1861, issues of Ecclectic
Magazine; and his "Narrative of the American Embassy to Peking in July, 1 859," Journal of
the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 1 (1 859), pp. 31 5-349.

"Charles P. Bush, Five Years in China (Philadelphia, 1865), pp. 222, 223, 256-59.

"Augustine Heard and Co., et al., to J.E. Ward, November 1 1 , 1859, in Daily Constitutional-
ist, March 21, 1860.

i0Nathan Albert Pelcovitz, Old Hands and the Foreign Office (New York, 1948), Chap. 1,
passim., and Stephen C. Lockwood, Augustine Heard and Company, p. 64.

i1J. E. Ward to Lewis Cass, August 20, 1859, in China, Despatches.

i2J. E. Ward to M , June 30, 1859, in The New York Times, October 1 1 , 1859.

"Third Annual Message to Congress, December 19, 1859, in John Moore, ed., The Works
of James Buchanan, X, p. 346-347.

^Telegraph (Macon, Georgia), as reported in The Constitutionalist, February 28, 1860.

i5James D. Johnson, China and Japan, p. 297.

i6J. E. Ward to Lewis Cass, November 19, 1859, and February 24, 1860, in Despatches,
China; Williams, Life, pp. 325-26.

J7On coolie trade, see also John Slidell's report from the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, as quoted in the Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), January 1859.

"J. E. Ward to Lewis Cass,, July 4, 1859, in Despatches, China.

"Imperial Edicts of July 30, 31, 1860, and J. E. Ward to Hengfu, August 4, 1860, in Earl
Swisher, China's Management, pp. 662-68, 675.

*See the writer's article on Ward's Civil War career cited above; The New York Tribune,
August 30, 1896; and Morning News (Savannah), December 1 , 1902.

87

William L. Scruggs:

A Georgian As United States

Consul in China, 1879-81

DALE H. PEEPLES'

When William L. Scruggs of Atlanta, Georgia, was selected by
President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879 to go to China as American
consul in Zhenjiang, he reluctantly accepted this appointment.1

He had served President Grant as American minister to Colombia.
But Zhenjiang was remote; he did not know the Chinese language;
the climate was unhealthful and uncomfortable; and disagreements
with his fellow diplomats, especially George Seward, American min-
ister to China, only worsened the situation.2

Nevertheless, Scruggs was keenly aware of the importance of
economic ties between between Zhenjiang and the United States. He
had lost no time in familiarizing himself with the facts. Zhenjiang was
one of the old cities of China, with a population over 500,000. The
city's success was based on its geographical location at the point
where the Grand Canal crossed the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River),
approximately forty miles down river from Nanjing and one hundred
miles from Shanghai. During The Taiping Rebellion the city was the
site of much fighting and suffered substantial destruction. Since that
time the Chinese had devoted considerable effort to the rebuilding of
this strategically important city.3

Scruggs reported to the State Department that during the second
quarter of 1 879 the principal import was grey shirting, mostly from the

'Professor Peeples teaches American diplomatic history at Valdosta State College, Valdosta,
Georgia, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1964. He received his Ph. D. in
American diplomatic history from the University of Georgia in 1964.

88

United States, and that the trade had increased over the past year by
30,950 pieces. Scruggs noted the rising demand for American cotton
goods had caused some concern among the British in China. British
merchants charged that the Americans were selling at a loss to dump
cotton goods which could not be sold on the domestic market.
Scruggs rejected that view and observed that American goods were
in demand because of "superior purity and quality." Both British and
Chinese conceded that this was true. The American consul did
sxpress some concern about the poor quality of packaging of the
cotton products and warned that if this was not remedied it might be
detrimental to trade.4

In a despatch to the State Department on October 20, 1879 the
Georgia diplomat reported that he had learned from a Chinese
commercial report that the United States in 1878 was the fourth most
important trade partner of China, behind Great Britain, India, and
Russia. Chinese exports to the United States that year amounted to
J>9, 535, 381 .25 and imports from the United States were valued at
$3,267,064.60 for a total trade of $12,802,445.85. The total trade
cetween China and Great Britain was $61 ,71 4,859, .1 0. Scruggs was
disturbed by the decreased number of entrances and clearances by
American vessels between 1873 and 1878 from 5,001 to 1,018, and
decresed tonnage from 3,483,203 to 341,942 tons. Scruggs identi-
fied "perhaps the most serious difficulty at present besetting our trade
with China" as a system of provincial customs barriers." Arbitrary
'seizures" prevailed to the extent that it was "next to impossible either
to get foreign goods into the interior, or native products to the treaty
c-orts for exportation."5

In addition to his concern with trade, the American consul at Zhen-
jiang was also concerned with military affairs. Seward asked the
consuls in China to report on military preparedness in each consular
district. Scruggs responded that the Chinese had impressive fortifi-
cations at Silver Island, located a mile down the Chang Jiang from
Zhenjiang. He stated that military experts had declared the position
to be "impregnable." Both here and at Nanjing were heavy guns
manufactured by Krupp of Germany. Scruggs called Zhenjiang a
garrison city: some 2,000 soldiers and cavalry were stationed there.
The troops were equipped with matchlock rifles. The key to the
defense of the city was a large stockade located on a hill behind the

89

city. Here were some 600 men armed with 15 field pieces. He
remarked that the soldiers were trained in the British manner and that
orders were given in English. The reason for this, Scruggs revealed,
was that the new troops could learn the English commands just as
easily as Chinese and that by using English they would avoid confu-
sion if the soldiers were ever placed under an English-speaking
officer. Scruggs remarked that the powder used by the military was
foreign made because the Chinese powder was considered less
suitable. He noted that "the high provincial authorities take good care
to have as little of this (or any other) powder in the hands of the
people as possible. Indeed, they seem to be constantly on the watch
for possible insurrections."6

Scruggs also had opportunities to observe Chinese religious life.
His impression was that Chinese people were "singularly indifferent"
to religious affairs. He found evidence of this in the disrepair of their
temples, the ignorance of their clergy, and the clergy's lack of impact
on the people. Scruggs was impressed by the deep conservatism of
the Chinese government in religious matters. They were opposed to
virtually any change, and Scruggs commented that in "perhaps no
other country under the sun can it be so truly said that it is governed
by dead men." He believed that Christianity had made virtually no
progress in China. Scruggs wrote that "we occasionally see a China-
man who is said to be a Christian; but his outer life reveals little, if
any, evidences of his new faith. Whatever he may profess of Christi-
anity seems well nigh concealed in native superstition."7

One of the problems which confronted American diplomats in
China in 1879 was the question of jurisdiction of the consular courts
in China. Minister Seward was engaged in negotiations with the Chi-
nese government to secure a treaty to define jurisdiction. He re-
quested the opinions of the consuls on this topic. Scruggs responded
with an elaborate analysis which he felt was of sufficient merit to be
sent on to the State Department. He identified China as a "pagan
state, and as such, has never fully acknowledged and observed
those usages, maxims, and rules universally acknowledged and
accepted as binding among Christian states." With this basic differ-
ence in approach to jurisdiction, it was necessary to define jurisdic-
tion and procedure by treaty. He traced out the evolution of legal
interaction as defined by diplomatic action. In cases involving Chi-

90

nese and foreigners, Scruggs thought "the difficulties of amicable
adjustments are often very perplexing." With the Chinese and Ameri-
:an legal concepts so foreign to each other, it was virtually assured
:hat one party or the other would feel wronged by the legal process.
Fherefore it would be difficult to work out a system that would be fair
:o both parties.8

In a subsequent despatch Scruggs commented on the defects of
tie consular judicial system, and he pointed out that merchant con-
suls frequently were uninformed about the law. Another problem was
he attitude of the Chinese governing class, which was very hostile to
he exercise of judicial power by the merchant consuls. He believed
hat this attitude was derived from the class distinctions in China
Detween the rulers and the merchants. Scruggs called for a major
Dverhaul of the consular system which he termed "radically defec-
:ive." He urged legislation which would require appointment of per-
sons trained in the diplomatic service. Scruggs believed that a pro-
:essional consular corps would be "commensurate with our national
dignity and importance as a first class power."9

Seward took exception to Scruggs' comments, and put forth the
/iew that Scruggs had misinterpreted the treaty provisions, misun-
derstood the nature of the problem, and offered the wrong solutions.
Seward clearly wanted Scruggs to recant when he asked Scruggs for
'a further communication from you, and a frank exposition of the
/iews which may occur to you upon a further consideration of the
subject."10

To this request for reconsideration of his views, the Georgian
'esponded by defending his position and suggesting that Seward
was mistaken in charging that the consul's views were out of step
with the State Department's understanding of the terms of the trea-
ties and the nature of the problems. Nonetheless, Scruggs, in an
sffort to placate Seward, pledged to "adhere strictly to the instruc-
tions from the Department enunciated and interpreted by your des-
Datch."11

In a later exchange of notes with Seward, Scruggs conceded that
the Consular Regulations of 1874 were acceptable. He wrote that

they are brief, almost to meagerness; and they are simple, pos-
sible to feebleness. But until our Consular System shall have
been so revised as to render the service more permanent and

91

efficient, like our judiciary at home, they are perhaps better
adapted to our Courts in China than a more elaborate and
complex system would be.12

Moreover, Scruggs continued to believe that parts of the rules
were "somewhat foreign to the spirit of the United States laws and ju-
risprudence," and he continued to urge changes to improve the
quality of consular jurisprudence. The discussion between the two
men ended at this point because Seward was leaving his position as
minister and would soon by replaced by James C. Angell.13

The major crisis which arose during Scruggs' tenure at Zhenjiang
was over a British-backed scheme for impostion of wharfage fees at
Zhenjiang to maintain the port area known as the British Concession
and to pay off bonds issued earlier for internal improvements. When
Scruggs learned of the scheme he immediately reported to Minister
Seward on May 6, 1 880. The British would clearly have a major voice
in the control of the taxing and expenditures. The appeals process,
as Scruggs noted, would be largely in the hands of the British. There
would be virtually no American participation in the decision making
process, but Americans would have to pay the wharfage fees.14

Because Scruggs had not been officially informed of the scheme,
he could not formally lodge a protest. Therefore he prepared a
memorandum dated May 6, 1880, in which he spelled out the Ameri-
can objections to this effort by the British to increase their influence.
The consul held that the plan was not justified by the existing treaties
between China and the other powers. Moreover, he denied the
legality of the so called British Concession, and the increase in power
of the municipal council under the proposal would represent an
unwarranted assumption of power. Scruggs remarked, "Such an
assumption would, if admitted, be a manifest abridgment of treaty
rights. It would destroy the foundation of existing commercial inter-
course by foreigners in the Chinese Empire." He contended that the
municipal body should have jurisdiction over the British only. Scruggs
concluded that the proposal "is objectionable; so much so that it can
never be seriously entertained by the American Consul."15

Scruggs, who constantly informed Seward and the State Depart-
ment as to his efforts to defeat this British grab for power, soon
learned that the British in fact had been trying for five years to win
acceptance of similar proposals, but they had been unsuccessful

92

because of lack of support from the Chinese and other foreigners.
Scruggs uncovered information which caused him to suggest that
two men were responsible for the present proposal in order to
promote their own selfish ends. One of them, Sir Robert Hart, who
was the Inspector General of Customs, was a large landowner in the
area and stood to benefit financially. The other, Mr. Kleinwachter,
Commission of Customs at Zhenjiang and a member of the municipal
council, stood to gain political power. Although Scruggs held the
British to be back of this scheme, he assured his superiors that the
controversy had not impaired his "very cordial relations" with the
British consul; indeed, at that very moment Scruggs was looking after
the affairs of the British consulate during the absence of its consul.16

Scruggs renewed his attack on the wharfage dues plan with a
second memorandum on July 10, 1880, in which he again claimed
that no such local tax would be in compliance with treaty provisions.
He suggested that the ends desired could be achieved without
imposing such dues if the Inspector General would "appropriate the
tonnage fees, collected from the foreign vessels at this port, as
contemplated by the treaty, in order to accomplish the end desired."
The consul then commented that the improvements would benefit the
property owners in the British Concession and they, not the persons
outside, should be taxed. Finally, he expressed opposition to the
decision-making process which favored the British.17

On the same day, July 10, 1880, Scruggs forwarded to Seward a
modified version of the plan which the local taotai, or provincial
official, had prepared at the insistence of Commissioner of Customs
Kleinwachter. This modified plan was then submitted by the taotai io
the foreign consuls for their approval. As far as Scruggs was con-
cerned the changes were cosmetic and the basic flaws remained. It
still was essentially a plan "for paying a private indebtedness at the
expense of the public," and it also included an "unwarranted assump-
tion of eminent domain, which if once admitted will seriously impair
treaty rights and undermine the present system of commercial inter-
course, at the Chinese open ports.18

By September 13, 1880, Scruggs could claim victory in his fight
against the wharfage dues scheme. He reported that the taotai was
now opposed to the plan. The Chinese official informed Scruggs that
he had given support to the plan because Kleinwachter had told him

93

that the American consul was in favor of the plan. Scruggs then
showed the taotai the memorandum of May 3 to prove that Klein-
wachter had misrepresented the American position. By this time
Scruggs could also report that the acting British consul had come to
the conclusion that the scheme would fail and assured Scruggs that
he would seek to discourage further attempts to push the proposal.
The Commissioner of Customs was threatening to carry the issue to
Beijing (Peking), but it appeared that he had almost no chance of
success.19

Both Seward and his successor, James Angell, supported Scruggs'
efforts to resist this illegal maneuver by the British. Angell wrote to
Scruggs that "I take pleasure in expressing my approbation of the
position you have taken in opposition to the proposed 'Regulation.'"
He repeated his praise of Scruggs' handling of the problem in a
despatch to Secretary Evarts. At the end of the negotiations, Angell
expressed the view that "this result is probably due in some degree to
your lucid and forcible presentations of objections to it." Scruggs
could take some satisfaction that his service at Zhenjiang was crowned
with success.20

In spite of Scruggs' efforts to return home or to be transferred
elsewhere, due to his family's illness in Georgia and his illness in
Zhenjiang, Scruggs had to accept re-assignment to Guangzhou,
China, in June, 1880.21

Scruggs officially assumed his new post at Guangzhou on Novem-
ber 1 5, 1 880. There he found that conditions were less than satisfac-
tory. The furnishings of the consulate were "rather meager." He soon
requested permission to hire a constable. His predecessors had
called upon consulates of other countries to aid whenever the serv-
ices of a constable were required. Scruggs complained that "such
practices illy [sic] comport with that dignity and independence which
other first class powers are careful to maintain in China."22

As American consul in Guangzhou, Scruggs was concerned about
the failure of his country to take advantage of the potential trade with
China. On April 2, 1881, he reported to the State Department that
only two American ships had visited Guangzhou during the previous
six months, and his impression was that the situation was similar at
other Chinese ports. He bemoaned the decline of the American
merchant marine from the time of the Civil War, when the blockade

94

and the success of Confederate commerce raiders caused a signifi-
cant decrease in the number of American merchant ships. Since the
Civil War the Congress had been willing to give adequate support to
the merchant marine. The result was, in his opinion, that the United
States was "no longer either a great commercial or a great naval
power." The situation would impair the efforts of American merchants
to expand trade between China and the United States.23

The most important diplomatic event during Scruggs' service in
Guangzhou was the wreck of The James Bailey, of Portland, Maine,
sailed from Hong Kong on October 14, 1880 for Vancouver Island. It
encountered a storm which resulted in the vessel going aground near
Wenchang on the coast of Hainan Island about 2:00 a.m. on October
17, 1880. The crew of twenty-two men under the command of
Captain Joseph W. Mann survived the wreck. The Chinese in the
area took advantage of the opportunity to strip the ship. Captain
Mann and his men were befriended by Fu Shun, a native of Hainan
who could speak English. They journeyed overland to Haikou, where
Mann requested and received the aid of James Scott, acting British
consul at that place. Scott contacted the Chinese officials and de-
manded protection for the vessel and appropriate action against the
looters. The local taotai ordered a detachment of police to the scene
and initiated action to recover the lost property or to fix the responsi-
bility for the theft. The American arranged for transportation to Hong
Kong aboard the Cassandra. Consul Mosby advised the State De-
partment of the situation and suggested that the government might
want to "demand indemnity of this outrage from the Chinese Govern-
ment." He also requested that Rear Admiral John M.B. Clitz, United
States Asiatic Squadron Commander, send a naval vessel to the
scene to conduct an investigation. The consul at Guangzhou, C.P.
Lincoln, who had jurisdiction over the area where the wreck took
place, advised the State Department of the incident on November 3,
1880, two weeks before he was replaced by Scruggs.24

Admiral Clitz, as requested by Mosby, directed Commander Char-
les L. Huntington to take the Alert to Hainan and to conduct an official
investigation to determine the facts concerning the looting of the
James Bailey. He learned that the Chinese authorities had acted
swiftly to punish the guilty parties and to recover the stolen property.
The Chinese cooperated fully with Huntington's investigation. Unfor-

95

tunately, Huntington was not authorized to negotiate a settlement nor
was he accompanied by the consul who could have done so.25

When Mr. Lincoln turned over the consulate at Guangzhou to
Scruggs the case was pending. Scruggs contacted the viceroy, who
assured him that the proper instructions had been issued to the local
officials at Hainan to punish the persons responsible and to recover
the missing property. The consul also learned that the owners of the
James Bailey had sold the wreck at auction to a German firm in Hong
Kong on November 6, 1 880 for two hundred dollars. The new owners
promptly informed the Guangzhou consulate of their claim against
the Chinese government for $8,850.00 for damages done to the ship
after the purchase. Captain Mann filed a claim for $7,445.75 on
behalf of the original owners, crew, and himself. Scruggs refused to
take any action on the claims until he could determine all the circum-
stances.26

By April 3, 1881 Scruggs had a copy of Commander Huntington's
report and had completed his own inquiry. He informed the State
Department that the local Chinese officials on Hainan had turned
over to him the compass and sextant which had been stolen from the
ship. The viceroy inflicted punishment on the person responsible and
"he is still detained by the local magistrate as a kind of hostage for the
missing articles." Scruggs did not expect any substantial restoration
of the items still missing, and he anticipated that it might be neces-
sary to demand a financial settlement. He suggested to the viceroy
that a financial adjustment could be arranged and the sum raised by
a levy imposed on the Hainan area.27

In regard to the claims, Scruggs believed that Mann's claim was
"extravagent and unreasonable." Commander Huntington unofficially
estimated the loss at between two and three thousand dollars. Scruggs
was skeptical of the claim by the new owners because of the German
nationality of the owners. Although one of the owners claimed to be a
naturalized American citizen, he had no proof of this. Nor was there
any evidence to prove damage to the ship after the transfer of title.
Finally, Scruggs believed that the claim was so exaggerated "as to
render the claim itself preposterous, for the claimants made the
purchase as a venture, paying only two hundred dollars therefore,
and by the very terms of the sale, assuming all risks." He thought it
possible to negotiate a settlement which would be for less than half of

96

the original owners', crew's and Captain Mann's claims and no more
than actual losses by the German company, if any. Scruggs prom-
ised to keep the State Department fully informed of the negotia-
tions.28

Eventually Scruggs was able to settle the claims for owners, crew,
and Mann for two thousand dollars and no award was made for the
Germans. While this was less than Scruggs had expected when he
entered into the negotiations, it was all he felt could be obtained from
the Chinese. Much of the damage to the James Bailey was the direct
result of the storm, and compensation for such damage could not be
expected. In the negotiations Scruggs was mindful of the need to be
fair to both sides. He observed, "Whilst this sum is a great deal less
than the aggregate of the claims presented by the claimants, it is, in
my judgment, an equitable equivalent for all actual losses sustained
by reason of the robbery." Although the German company, Messrs.
Blackhead & Co., received no compensation in the settlement, this
was fair because it had no real loss. In fact, the company which had
purchased the wreck for $200 resold it to a German businessman for
$2,800.29

While Scruggs was successful in arranging a settlement of the
James Bailey case, he found himself engaged in a controversy with
Minister James B. Angell over his failure to keep Angell informed.
Angell first learned of the loss of the ship from the British minister to
China, Sir Thomas Wade, who showed Angell a despatch from
acting Consul Scott. The American diplomat related the information
to Secretary of State Evarts in a despatch of November 20, 1880, in
which he mentioned that he was expecting a report on the incident
from the consul at Hong Kong or from Consul Lincoln at Guangzhou.
He promised that if the matter could not be settled at the consular
level, he would demand satisfaction from the Imperial government.
After waiting weeks without word from the consuls, Angell wrote
Admiral Clitz and gained from him a copy of Huntington's report. After
more weeks without communication from the consuls, Angell wrote
Scruggs on January 12, 1881, and was surprised to learn from
Scruggs that Lincoln and Scruggs had reported directly to the State
Department without informing the legation. In a despatch to Evarts,
Angell observed that the case might require action by the minister: "It
is surprising to me that it should not have occurred to either Mr.

97

Lincoln or Mr. Scruggs to write me about it." He reported that he had
written to Scruggs to express his amazement and to instruct the
consul to keep the legation informed if a similar situation should
evolve in the future. Angell also suggested that in the future the
consul at Hong Kong might be required to report on all maritime
disasters in that area directly to the legation.30

While the handling of the James Bailey case was being discussed,
Scruggs was seeking leave to return to the United States. He wrote
to President James A. Garfield on April 5, 1881 , informing the Presi-
dent that when he agreed to go to China in 1879 he had been
promised early leave to return home. The Georgian reviewed his
health problems and the warning by his doctors that his continued
stay in China would endanger his life. Scruggs wrote "under all
circumstances it would be madness to disregard their warning." He
requested a sixty day leave with permission to return to the United
States and reminded the President that "a word from you, Sir would
settle the whole matter."31

The State Department granted the leave, and Scruggs arrived in
Atlanta on August 13, 1881. He was never to return to China; after
months of leave, he was appointed minister to Colombia in 1882.32

Scruggs' years in China were unhappy for him because of loneli-
ness and sickness. He was a feisty fighter for his views and reputa-
tion, and thus much of his time was spent in controversy with his
fellow diplomats in China. He worked diligently to improve the consu-
lates to which he was assigned. Scruggs was successful in resisting
the wharfage scheme and in negotiating a settlement of the James
Bailey case. He was an efficient and effective representative of his
country under very difficult circumstances.

NOTES

1 For more information on Scruggs, see: "William Lindsay Scruggs," in Allen Johnson and
Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography (22 vols., New York, 1928-1958),
XVI, 520-21; Theodore D. Jervey, "William Lindsay Scruggs A Forgotten Diplomat,"
South Atlantic Quarterly 27 (July 1928), pp. 292-309.

2 William L. Scruggs to Sevelean. Brown, May 26, 1879, in U.S. State Department, Des-
patches from United States Consuls in Chinkiang (Zhenjiang), 1864-1902, National Ar-
chives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Despatches, Chinkiang.); Scruggs to Charles
Payson, July 18, 1879, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

3 Scruggs to Payson, October 29, 1879, in Despatches, Chinkiang; Scruggs to Payson,
August 28, 1879, in Despatches, Chinkiang; George Seward to William M. Evarts, October
10, 1879 and February 23,1880, in U.S. State Department, Despatches from U.S. Minis-

98

ters to China, 1843-1906, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Des-
patches, China.); Scruggs to Payson, February 4, 1880, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

4 Scruggs to Payson, August 4, 1879, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

5 Scruggs to Payson, October 20, 1879, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

6 Scruggs to Payson, February 17, 1880, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

7 Scruggs to Payson, August 17, 1880, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

8 Scruggs to Payson, November 19, 1879, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

9 Scruggs to Payson, November 20, 1879, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

0 Copy of Seward to Scruggs, December 3, 1879, attached to Scruggs to Payson, Decem-
ber 1 9, 1 879, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

1 Copy of Scruggs to Seward, December 15, 1879, attached to Scruggs to Payson,
December 19, 1879, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

2 Copy of Scruggs to Seward, March 6, 1880, attached to Scruggs to Payson, March 10,
1 880, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

3 ibid.

4 Copy of Scruggs to Seward, May 6, 1 880, attached to Scruggs to Payson, July 3, 1 880, in
Despatches, Chinkiang.

5 Copy of Memorandum of May 6, 1880, attached to Scruggs to Payson, July 3, 1880, in
Despatches, Chinkiang.

6 Scruggs to Payson, July 14, 1880, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

7 Copy of Memorandum of July 10, 1880, attached to Scruggs to Payson, July 14, 1880, in
Despatches, Chinkiang.

8 Copy of Scruggs to Seward, July 10, 1880, attached to James B. Angell to William M.
Evarts, October 27, 1880, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

9 Copy of Scruggs to Angell, September 1 3, 1 880, attached to Angell to Evarts, October 27,
1 880, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

20 Copy of Angell to Scruggs, September 23, 1 880, attached to Angell to Evarts, October 27,
1 880, in Despatches, Chinkiang.

21 Scruggs to Evarts, January 11,1 880, and to Payson, March 1 9, April 28, and August 24,
1880, in Despatches, Chinkiang. Copy of James White to Denny, October 11, 1880,
attached to Denny to Payson, December 18, 1880, in Despatches, Shanghai.

22 Scruggs to Payson, November 16, 1880 and November 30, 1880, in U.S. State Depart-
ment, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Canton (Guangzhou), 1790-1906, National Ar-
chives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Despatches, Canton.)

23 Scruggs to Payson, April 2, 1881, in Despatches, Canton.

24 Mosby to John Hay, October 30, 1880, in Despatches, Hong Kong; C.P. Lincoln to
Payson, November 3, 1880, in Despatches, Canton.

25 Copy of Huntington's Report attached to Scruggs to Payson, December 7, 1880, in
Despatches, Canton.

26 Scruggs to Payson, December 7, 1880, in Despatches, Canton.

27 Scruggs to Payson, April 3, 1881, in Despatches, Canton.

28 Ibid.

29 Scruggs to Payson, May 24, 1881, and June 3, 1881, in Despatches, Canton.

30 Angell to Evarts, November 20, 1880 and March 19, 1881, in Despatches, China.

31 Scruggs to James A. Garfield, April 5, 1881, in Despatches, Canton.

32 Scruggs to Payson, June 28, 1881, August 13, 1881 and October 14, 1881, in Des-
patches, Canton; Atlanta Constitution, April 16, 1882.

99

Feminism and Methodist

Missionary Activity In China:

The Experience of Atlanta's Laura Haygood,

1884-1900

LINDA MADSON PAPAGEORGE*

There exists an impressive amount of literature concerning the
failure of Protestant missionaries to convert China to Christianity.
Relatively little of this literature considers the role played by women in
the missionary endeavor.1 Although the China missionary field was
one area of religion open to American women in the nineteenth
century, important questions arise: Why was this particular field open
to women? What kinds of women entered it and why? What was the
nature of the missionary woman's spiritual consciousness? On what
basis or terms did women participate with men in the China mission-
ary movement? What was the effect of their participation, if any, on
China? Although few extant studies concerning women's missionary
activities consider such issues, these questions can be answered for
the experience of Laura Askew Haygood of Atlanta.2

Between 1884 and 1900 Haygood was a missionary-educator for
the Woman's Board of the Woman's Missionary Society of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, South, in its "Woman's Work for Woman"
project in China. She is an appropriate subject for historical inquiry

*Professor Papageorge teaches American history at Kennesaw College, Marietta, Georgia.
In 1 973 she received her Ph.D. in United States diplomatic history and modern Chinese history
from Michigan State University, where she worked under Paul A Varg. She is the author of
"Completing the Open Door Policy: Sino-American Reapproachment During the Boxer
Uprising," Selected Papers in Asian Studies 1 (1976). The original version of this article on
Laura Haygood was first published in the Proceedings and Papers of the Georgia Association
of Historians (1982), and is republished with that publication's permission.

100

Decause of the nature of the work she accomplished overseas and
[he relationship that existed between her missionary activities and
ner feminist and religious consciousness. The Haygood story identi-
fies religious roots of feminism and the involvement of women in
American-East Asian relations, since being a foreign single woman
missionary eventually offered an acceptable career alternative to be-
coming a homemaker. In addition, Haygood's experience shows how
some American Christians viewed the Chinese and their culture. Her
ife history could contribute to a collective biography of western
women in religious vocations in East Asia.

American Methodists had initiated missionary activity in China in
tie late 1840s, but the American Civil War interrupted this work. In
tie post-war recovery decade of the 1870s interest in Christianizing
3hina revived and increased in momentum during the 1880s and
1890s. In the 1870s a small group of zealous Southern women
Drganized to convert the women and children of "heathen" lands.
Conservative church members, both men and women, opposed the
dea of a woman's missionary society. According to Mrs. Francis
3utler, first editor of the Woman's Missionary Advocate, conservative
/vomen were afraid because they had "lived at ease in Zion without a
tiought of personal obligations distinct from father, brother or hus-
3-and." Male opposition stemmed from a "chivalrous feeling" that
Southern women should retain their old-time ubobstrusiveness, with-
Dut any desire to assert their own personality, even in Christian work,
Dr to engage in anything, other than social obligations, that would call
:hem out of their sheltered homes.3 After burying the activist women's
Detition in committee in 1874, the Southern Methodist General Con-
:erence of 1877 finally authorized a woman's missionary society on
condition that it was subordinate to the Conference's Board, which
would appoint the woman's missionary society's Executive Commit-
:ee. The activist women agreed and organized in 1878.

The years of Haygood's residence in China coincide with the be-
ginning of organized missionary activity on the part of the Woman's
Missionary Society (WMS) of the Southern Methodist Church. Until
ner arrival the society supported only two women in China, Mrs. W.R.
Lambuth, who had gone with her husband before the Civil War, and
Miss Lochie Rankin, who had gone in 1 879. A native of Georgia who
nad lived most of her life in Atlanta, Haygood arrived in Shanghai,

101

China, in the autumn of 1 884. She lived there continuously, except for
a two-year visit home from 1 894-96, until her death on April 29, 1 900.
Missionaries adopted practices suitable to the situations in which
they found themselves. The WMS directed its missionary activities in
China toward Chinese women and children. The policy rested on
their presumption that "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."
The women missionaries apparently believed the maxim to be appli-
cable to China without any extensive investigation into Chinese
society. The WMC viewed Chinese women as powerful forces in
society, capable of influencing the opinions of their fathers, hus-
bands, brothers and sons, and able, therefore, to transform China
from a pagan into a Christian land. A missionary's story printed in an
Annual Report was illustrative of how closely this belief was held.
According to the missionary:

the Chinaman is an individual with some backbone in him, but a
Chinese woman has several backbones in her. Once a builder
would not give [the missionary] an estimate for a building be-
cause the builder's wife was not at home, saying he never gave
estimates without consulting her. On being asked why, he re-
plied: 'Well, if you were married to her, you would not ask why.'

The missionary's conclusion was that "If this shows the immense
power and ascendency of woman in the home in China, how impor-
tant [it is] that she be brought as speedily as possible under the
influence of Christian education."4 The article did not deal with the
more complex questions of whether the anecdote was proof or
example, or whether the example was valid. If the missionary pro-
gram was based on a false assumption, wasn't it doomed from the
start?

Nevertheless, missionaries in the field, including native Chinese
clergymen, nurtured the belief in the importance of Chinese women.
Missionary work appears to have become based on faith, or isolated
example, rather than fact. Particularly influential in spreading the
supposition of the importance of Chinese women to the missionary
effort was Young J. Allen, a male Methodist missionary, educator,
administrator, writer and publisher, who had gone to China before the
Civil War and who served as WMS's agent from 1 878 to 1 886 and as
its superintendent from 1886 until 1889. Allen's report on a mission-
ary meeting held in China in 1884 emphasized his perception of the

102

urgency and value of a woman's work in evangelization of China. He
cited several reasons presented by native clergymen to support his
opinion. According to the native clergymen, Chinese men "cared little
for spiritual ideas or things."5 Chinese women, on the other hand, had
a highly developed religious sentiment, nurtured in "the recesses of
the inner apartments in the kitchen, and more or less regularly at the
temples." They also appeared to express a "spirit of devotion and a
longing for spiritual light and consolation."6 Chinese women might
well be easier targets for missionary activity than men, irrespective of
their presumed power or ascendency. The native clergymen also
maintained that the pious example of the mothers in the family had
led to the establishment of Buddhism and Taoism in China and that it
would likewise lead to the triumph of Christianity. Finally, according to
Allen, "Woman's Work for Woman" was necessary for a practical
reason: male ciergy, whether foreign or native, had no access to
Chinese women. In Allen's summation "Woman's Work for Woman"
in China has attained the commanding position of being a practical
necessity, not only for the salvation of woman but of the family as a
whole, and the ultimate introduction of the Christian religion."7 Be-
cause of the presumption propagated by Allen that China would
become Christian only through its women and that only female
missionaries could approach the women, Southern Methodists be-
came especially receptive to the notion of women missionaries con-
centrating their efforts primarily on the women and girls of China.

Haygood's personal philosophy and goals in life harmonized with
the policy and objectives of the WMS. If Haygood is an accurate
model, the women who went to China as missionaries were well-
educated, sensitive, romantic, idealistic, energetic, and hard working.
They were also activist, unmarried and devout Christians in
Haygood's case one would have to say intensely religious. These
attributes derived from a highly developed religious consciousness
which served as the organizing principle in a woman missionary's
life.8

Haygood's religious consciousness made her an especially zeal-
ous missionary. In her understanding, a Christian was by definition a
missionary. A Christian must act like Christ. Therefore, he must
continue Christ's work of preaching the word of the Father to all His
children.9 In a letter to Dr. Allen she wrote:

103

It seems to me that our only hope for the world in darkness is that
men and women into whose hearts the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God has shined in the face of Jesus Christ should
come into living sympathy with Christ's thought for the world, and
should come to know that they are everyone called to fellow-
ship with Him in saving the world.10

A Christian must look after the spiritual and physical needs of
suffering peoples everywhere.

Haygood's religious consciousness not only made her a mission-
ary; it also made her a feminist. The obligation to continue Christ's
mission had devolved on Christian women as well as men. In an
essay written shortly before she left for China she deplored her
sisters' lack of concern for the plight of "the heathen:"

We, the women, as well as our brothers have been slow to
understand that she was included in the Savior's gracious words
to the Father 'As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have
I sent them into the world.' To her as well as to him was given the
commission to teach and to testify of the risen Christ; upon her
as well as on him came the pentecostal gift of tongues.11

She blamed society for women's lack of concern for others. In her
opinion parents and teachers taught women to value the wrong
things, "the perfect report, the medal, the honor, the applause of the
world, a brilliant entrance into society."12 Consequently, continued
Haygood,

she spends hours at the piano though she has no special talent
for music; she begins to paint impossible pictures, or, even
worse, she stitches away her life, with its golden opportunities for
health and strength, in ruffles and tucks and embroideries. Why
have we not told her that to grace her home, to make it bright and
beautiful and good, is indeed womanly and wise, but must not
absorb all of love and time and mind?13

Haygood was a missionary at home first and only later abroad.
With two other women she had organized the home mission work of
Trinity Methodist Church in Atlanta. For several years she found this
work completely absorbing.14 Although she sympathized with Dr.
Allen's problems concerning the lack of personnel for the China's
mission, she did not herself feel a "call" to go.15 Perhaps the respon-

104

sibility of caring for her invalid mother blocked the way. After her
mother's death in 1883 Haygood admitted that, to her own surprise,
she found herself gravitating toward the China mission.16 While listen-
ing to a sermon by Dr. Potter at Trinity Church she felt the personal
call to go to China. She wrote Dr. Potter that "within the last ten days
I have come to feel that if the works of God in China needs women,
there is no woman in all the world under more obligation to go than I
am."17

Haygood's religious consciousness had wedded her to missionary
work, but not necessarily to "foreign" missionary work. Other factors
contributed to her decision to become a foreign missionary. As she
explained, there was, first, the dire need for workers. Secondly, she
had the necessary qualifications.18 The Woman's Board required that
its missionaries have teaching or administrative experience. Hay-
good had both, by virtue of a long teaching career in Sunday school
and in Atlanta's Girls' High School, her principalship of Girls' High,
and her presidency of the Trinity Home Missionary Society.19 Finally,
she was "free" to go. The Woman's Board required that its missionar-
ies be unmarried and that they remain so for five years or repay the
cost of their outfit and travel to China, usually from $1 300 to $1 500.20

Haygood's experience led her to modify her views on the status of
women. She at first approved of the requirement that women mis-
sionaries be unmarried. In her early years she seemed to feel that for
women the vocations of marriage and family life were incompatible
with missionary activity.21 Women apparently could not be wives,
mothers, and missionaries simultaneously. She did not recognize a
similar conflict in men between the vocations of husband, father, and
missionary. In time, she changed her mind.22 Several factors contrib-
uted to Haygood's change of mind concerning the relation of the
married woman to missionary work: the demands of the work in
China; the scarcity of workers; and the remarkable performances of
missionary wives, especially in day schools run by the Methodist
Church.23 Consequently she influenced the Woman's Board to change
its policy regarding the wives of missionaries. That policy had permit-
ted a woman to be a missionary as long as she remained single. If
she married another missionary she became a missionary wife,
received no salary, and often continued to do the same work on a
reduced scale but without any supervision. Haygood advised the

105

Board to recognize missionary wives as associate missionaries. The
Board adopted her proposal, allowed the associate missionaries to
participate in annual missionary meetings, but denied them the right
to vote.24 Haygood's attempt the following year to gain associate mis-
sionaries the right to vote failed.25 However, her action brought the
activities of missionaries' wives under the control of the Woman's
Board and thereby elevated their status.

Haygood also advanced the cause of feminism in China missionary
work by helping to open the career to older women. Haygood herself
failed to meet the Board's age requirement. She was approximately
thirty-nine years old at the time of her appointment, whereas the
Woman's Board required its missionaries to be between the ages of
twenty-two and thirty years, later extended to thirty-five years. Never-
theless, it had also provided for exempting the "exceptional" woman,
which Haygood was deemed to be.26 In China, her age proved an
asset, as did her gray hair, large physique, and eyeglasses. Anna
Brown testified to the fact in 1892, on the occasion of the formal
opening of McTyeire School, which Haygood helped establish. One
Chinese man inquired about Haygood's age. Her associates in-
formed him that she was nearly fifty and grayhaired. Mrs. Brown
noted that "all of these [attributes] are prominently respectable in the
eyes of the Chinese. Truly no real young woman could open the
school. Miss Haygood's age and experience are simply invaluable."27
To Mrs. Brown, the Chinese awe for seniority vindicated the excep-
tion the Board had made in Haygood's case, in favor of an older
woman. Haygood's achievements in China might facilitate the accep-
tance of older women for missionary duty in China thereafter.

In appointing Haygood to the China Mission, the Woman's Board
intended that she would lead the woman's work in Shanghai.28 For
the first five years she worked with Dr. Allen, an association that
worked well because she agreed with his plans. Before taking over
responsibility for the work there, she had managed to learn the
Chinese language and cope with illnesses induced by the climate.
This was all the more remarkable for a thirty-nine year old grayhaired
woman. In 1889 Methodist Bishop Wilson appointed her superinten-
dent of woman's work in the Shanghai District. In that capacity she
managed all the business affairs of the Woman's Board there and
coordinated the Society's educational and evangelistic activities as

106

well.29

Southern Methodists had several approaches which they could
follow in promoting Christianity in China. These included preaching
and/or teaching.30 Some missionaries argued in favor of exclusively
evangelistic activities because they believed secular educational
projects distracted a potential convert from religion. Those who
promoted secular education, on the other hand, viewed it as a means
to an end. Because of its practical value, secular education would
attract the Chinese. While giving the Chinese a practical education,
the missionaries could at the same time instill Christian principles in
them. The latter method seemed to many to offer more return for the
money and effort invested.

The WMS in its "Woman's Work for Woman" project developed a
methodology which combined the educational and evangelistic ap-
proaches. The society viewed the two as interdependent. Teaching
was preaching and vice versa. Educational activities served as a
springboard into evangelistic work. Missionaries would provide a
secular education in which they would inculcate Christian principles
and practices. They would teach the Chinese to read the Bible as well
as the Chinese classics. The schools were essential to the evangeli-
cal work of the society.31 The missionaries regarded children as the
keys with which they would gain the vital access to Chinese mothers
at home.32 To convert the woman in the home was the real focus of
the "Woman's Work for Woman" project. The missionaries would visit
the home, preach the gospel, and invite the women to come to church
for prayer meetings and Bible instruction. The missionaries would
then recruit adult female converts, or "Bible women," who would
further proselytize among other Chinese. The "Bible Women" project,
related to the school project, was especially well thought of and
financed by American supporters of the China mission.33 Because the
"Bible Women" project and girls' schools were considered by WMS
their best methods for achieving the evangelization of China, they
became WMS's principal activities.

It is possible to argue that Young J. Allen was responsible for the
WMS's methodology. Yet if the Woman's Society followed Allen's
lead, it was perhaps because it found his philosophy and methods
acceptable. They were identical in basic features to those the women
were employing in their home mission work.34

107

Haygood, in her activities on behalf of WMS, offers an example of
a Victorian female missionary as a capable administrator. The McTyeire
Home and School which she helped establish in Shanghai embodied
the WMS's philosophy and methods. Although the idea was Dr.
Allen's, Haygood helped make the school a reality. She proposed a
novel way of funding the school without borrowing money already
pledged to other projects. It consisted of selling shares in the school
at ten dollars each to individuals and groups. Although Haygood only
arrived in Shanghai in the autumn of 1884, the Woman's Board
adopted her proposal and before its 1885 meeting adjourned, the
members had pledged eight hundred and twenty shares.35 Haygood
also located suitable property for McTyeire, arranged for the school's
construction, and furnished it between 1 884 and the school's opening
in 1892. She was the school's main guiding force in the first years of
its actual operation.

While Methodist "day schools" serviced Chinese girls from lower
social classes, McTyeire School was primarily for upper-class Chi-
nese girls whose parents disliked charity schools. It paralleled the
Southern Methodists' Anglo-Chinese College for Boys. The Woman's
Board planned that the school would eventually be self-supporting
since wealthy Chinese could well afford to pay to educate female
children.36 The "hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" philosophy
was evident. Given a Chinese woman's presumed influence with the
men in her family, it would be best to focus on the women of the
powerful Chinese upper class as a way to ultimately Christianize
China's ruling class. In this way Southern Methodism might make its
greatest impact.

Based on the history of Haygood's McTyeire School, it is impos-
sible to determine whether WMS pursued the most profitable course
in its missionary endeavors in China. As indicated earlier in this
paper, the society's basic premise was questionable. American women
in the late nineteenth century had already discovered the "hand that
rocked the cradle" wielded limited power and influence because it
could not cast the ballot. That China was less conservative or pater-
nalistic than America was problematical. What is definite is that
Haygood's methodology, evangelization through education of upper
class women, did not turn China into a Christian nation. The mission-
ary enterprise may have helped to convert or westernize an infinitesi-

108

mally small elite of upper class women in an overwhelmingly peasant
society, but it did not change China.37

It is possible to make limited conclusions concerning Haygood's life
and its significance. Her life was a success by her own standards.
She did not experience a dichotomy between what she believed and
what she did. Hers was a totally integrated personality; she was a
fulfilled person. Her religious consciousness and her intense Christi-
anity seem to have largely contributed to this fulfillment. Because of it
she became a feminist, went to China as a missionary, and assisted
in feminist-oriented reforms within the China missionary movement.
Her religiosity inspired her to help establish McTyeire School. Her ac-
ceptance of the maxim concerning the importance of women in
Chinese society underlay her activities on behalf of McTyeire, and
may have led the WMS to believe, by the time of Haygood's death in
Shanghai in 1900, that its proselytization work in China was success-
ful and growing. The conversion of most Chinese, however, remained
altogether beyond WMS's grasp. Because Haygood came to China
during the initial, formative years of the Society's missionary work,
she exerted an influence on the Society's policies and effort to
Christianize China.

NOTES

1Rita Gross, "Methodological Remarks on the Study of Women in Religion: Review, Criti-
cism and Redefinition," in Women and Religion, ed. by Judith Plaskow and Joan Arnold
Romero (rev. ed.; American Academy of Religion and The Scholar's Press, 1974), pp. 157,
159-61.

2The great majority of works about women's missionary activity were written by women in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and were primarily biographical in nature.
While some are of historical value, especially those containing personal letters, most of
these works suffer from a lack of objectivity. Their primary purpose was to eulogize the
departed missionary and to inspire other women either to become missionaries or to
donate to the missionary endeavor. Exceptions to this overall pattern in literature on
women's missionary activity include: Irwin T. Hyatt, Jr., Our Ordered Lives Confess: Three
Nineteenth-Century American Missionaries in East Shantung (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1976), Part Two, "Charlotte Diggs Moon," pp. 65-138; and R. Pierce
Beaver, All Loves Excelling (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 1968). Kenneth Scott Latourette's A History of Christian Missions in China
(Taipei: Ch'eng-Wen Publishing Company, 1966), is mainly a survey, but a good starting
point for general information. See also, as an exceptional account of women's missionary
activity: Frederick B. Hoyt, "'When a Field was Found too Difficult for a Man, a Woman
should be Sent': Adele M. Fielde in Asia, 1865-1890," The Historian 44 (May 1982), pp.
314-334.

3Francis A. Butler, History of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, M.E. Church, South
(Nashville: Publishing House of the M.E. Church, South, 1 91 2, d 904), pp. 11-12.

109

4Fourteenth Annual Report of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, M.E. Church,
South, 1892 (Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1892), pp. 19-20. Hereafter
cited as Annual.fleporf, with the specific year.

5 Annual Report, 1884, pp. 6-7.

6 Annual Report, 1884.

7 Annual Report, 1 884.

8Letter, Laura A. Haygood to Mollie Stevens, Shanghai, December 10, 1890; Letter,
Haygood to Miss Rutherford, Shanghai, December 19, 1890, in Life and Letters of Laura
Askew Haygood, O.E. Brown and A.M. Brown, eds. (Nashville: Publishing House of the
M.E. Church, South, 1904), pp. 254, 256-58 (hereafter referred to as Life); Annual Report,
1892, p. 11.

9I.J. John, Mrs., compiler, Missionary Cameos (rev. ed.; Nashville: Publishing House of the
M.E. Church, South, 1897, 1906), p. 27.

10Letter, Haygood to Young Allen, Shanghai, June 7, 1893, Young J. Allen Manuscripts,
Emory University Special Collections, pp. 8-9 (hereafter cited as: Allen Papers). Emphasis
is Haygood's.

11Haygood, "Relation of Female Education to Home Mission Work," August, 1884, Life, pp.
89-95. The discrepancy in the year composed, 1884/1894? does not alter the essay's
meaning.

12/_/fe, p. 93.

13L/fe, pp. 93-94. Emphasis is Haygood's.

14Letter, Haygood to D.H. McGavcock, Atlanta, February 12, 1883, in Life, pp. 99-100; Letter,
Haygood to Young Allen, Atlanta, February 21 , 1884, Allen Papers.

15Letter, Laura A. Haygood to Dr. Allen, ibid.

16L/fe, p. 100.

17Letter. Haygood to Dr. Potter, Atlanta, February n.d.; in 1884, in Life, p. 100.

18John, Cameos, p. 27.

19Annual Report, 1879, pp. 50-51 ; Cameos, p. 27.

20See "Treasurer's Report" included in each Annual Report.

Annual Report,, 1894, pp. 89-90.

22Letter, Haygood to Mattie Nunally, Shanghai, May 23, 1893, in Life, pp. 310-31 1 .

23 Annual Report, 1894, pp. 89-90.

24 Annual Report, 1891, p. 100.

25 Annual Report, 1892, p. 100.

26 Annual Report, 1879, pp. 50-51 .

27 Annual Report, p. 281.

28 Annual Report, pp. 103-104.

29 Annual Report, 1889, p. 80.

30For a consideration of this issue see Irwin T. Hyatt, Jr., "Protestant Missions in China, 1 877-
1890: The Institutionalization of Good Works," in American Missionaries in China, ed. by
Kwang-ching Liu (Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University,
1970), pp. 93-126; and The Missionary Controversy: Discussion, Evidence and Report
(London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1890), pp. 1-4. Some English Wesleyan
Methodists argued that Alexander Duff's policy of giving the Brahmins, the Indian leader-
ship class, a Christian education, had failed to convert them. "Instead of an explosion within
the citadel of Brahmanism, as the result of missionary work, we witness the wall of the
citadel crumbling beneath the influence of the 'Zeitgeist,' built up again in a new form and
with a new strength by the young Brahmins educated in our missionary colleges." Mission-
ary Controversy, p. 1 .

31 Annual Report, 1886, pp. 7-9, 17, 61; 1887, pp. 19-20; 1888, p. 9.

110

32Annual Report, 1 891 , p. 1 7.

33Letters, Haygood to Truehart, passim, in Life, pp. 438-46.

34Life, pp. 69-84; Letter, Haygood to Young Allen, February 21 , 1884, Allen Papers, pp. 8-9.

^Annual Report, 1 885, p. 59.

36 Annual Report, p. 58.

37Hyatt, Confess, pp. 990-92, concluded regarding "woman's work" in East Shandong that

"female conversion was meaningless (except in 'worth of one soul' terms) without male

family backing from the first," p. 90.

111

A Georgia Evangelist in the Celestial Empire:

Cicero Washington Pruitt (1857-1946)
and the Southern Baptist Mission in Shantung

MARJORIE KING*

Only the Big Rock standing twenty-five feet high, half a mile north
of Barrettsville, Georgia, marked the place of Cicero Washington
Pruitt's birth. Fifty-five years after leaving Dawson County for China,
the fields he had cultivated alongside his father had turned into
impassible forests. The buildings of his childhood home were gone,
the relationships with family and friends preserved only on the yel-
lowed pages of occasional letters postmarked from China. One of the
few remaining memories of his father was the elder Pruitt's renuncia-
tion of all connection with slavery. "He, however, never allowed it to
make a break between him and his brothers or his neighbors or his
pastor who had a considerable number of slaves."1

Where memory faltered, vision strengthened C.W.'s childhood
bond with Georgia kin. In his own old age, his grandfather, Hale
Washington Pruitt, whom he had never met, came to him in a waking
dream. "Suddenly I saw him standing in his mill near his home, his
height not far from my own, his appearance that of an old man with a
rather plump form. Rather fine-looking."2

The deep, almost mystical bond with his forefathers in the North

*Dr. King is an Associate Professor of East Asian history at Saint John's University,
CollegevHIe, Minnesota. She received her Ph.D. in modern Chinese history from Temple
University in 1984. Professor King published "Saving Souls and Doing Good in China: The
Departments of Religion and Social Service at the Peking Union Medical College, 1 91 9-1 941 ,"
Annals of the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, 1 987; "Ida Pruitt,"
U. S. - China Review9, no. 6 (November-December 1985); and "A Daughter of Two Nations,"
Women of China no. 9 (September 1986).

112

Georgia mountains internalized in C.W. Pruitt lifelong patterns of
respect for pre-scientific world views, agrarian ways of life, independ-
ent thinking, and sensitivity to human relations qualities which
stood him in good stead as a Southern Baptist missionary in China.
These qualities set him apart from most other longtime missionaries
of the Baptist and Presbyterian denominations which shared the
North China mission field. A "gentle, widely-respected man," C.W.
Pruitt's evolving understanding of the Chinese people and the role of
Christian missions in China during the years of America's "special
relationship" with China (1890-1945) offers an alternative model for
American interactions with China as we enter a second period of
favor.3

C.W. Pruitt's decision to devote his life to Christ and to China grew
out of his close association with the Concord Baptist Church. He
warmly remembered working with his father on the farm or tending
cows, sheep or hogs in the woods while his father reviewed religious
services and business meetings. For many years, attendance at the
popular Concord Camp Meeting was an annual Pruitt family event.
During a Concord Revival in !870, at the age of thirteen, C.W.
dedicated himself to a religious vocation in China. He was licensed to
preach at Concord Church by age fifteen and served as pastor of
three churches in South Carolina before China's call grew insistent.

Southern Baptists took seriously Christ's commission to save the
world in His name. With the establishment of the Southern Baptist
Convention in 1845, the Foreign Mission Board was formed. The
Southern Baptist Convention's mission focused on China because of
its size, population, "relatively advanced" culture, and relatively easy
access.4 The Reverend Samuel C. Clopton was appointed to Canton
within a year after the founding of the Foreign Mission Board.5 J.
Lewis and Henrietta Shuck soon moved there from the Portuguese
colony of Macao, where they had been stationed since I836.6 This
expansive gesture followed that of evangelical Protestant denomina-
tions inspired by the Great Awakening (1725-1775) to send missionar-
ies to continential frontier settlements. New England Baptists, who
outnumbered Congregationalists by 1790, sent missionaries to the
back country of the Southern colonies after 1756.7

C.W. Pruitt's interest in China during the I870s coincided with the
renewed commitment of Southern Baptists to missions after a hiatus

113

during the American Civil War. Edmonia and Charlotte Diggs (Lottie)
Moon were appointed to the North China mission station in Tengchow
in 1872 and 1873 respectively.8 He shaped his educational training to
suit his perceived needs in the China mission a term each at
Georgia Agricultural College in Dahlonega, Georgia, and Furman
University, South Carolina, before attending the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Here he studied Greek
and Hebrew, reasoning that learning these two languages would be
the best preparation for mastering Chinese.

In 1880, only a semester before graduating, C.W. was one of two
seminary students urgently called to the North China mission station
to replace two missionary students of C.H. Toy, whose liberal inter-
pretation of biblical scripture had "embarrassed" the Southern Baptist
Foreign Mission Board.9 In Pruitt's "instantaneous" decision to sacri-
fice his divinity degree was a lifelong characteristic. "The Baptist
denomination was mine and I could not afford to see it suffer."10 C.W.
Pruitt's mandate in the Southern Baptist China mission was to pre-
serve the denomination from the liberal trend in Protestantism which
developed with Darwinism and German high biblical criticism after
the American Civil War.

In later years C.W. Pruitt would be called on to preserve his
denomination from the opposite trend of Tennessee "Landmarkism"
advanced by fellow North China missionary T.P. Crawford. Tennes-
see "Landmarkism" was a movement within the Southern Baptist de-
nomination which emphasized the uniqueness of Baptist beliefs and
thus advocted complete separation from other Protestant denomina-
tions. Landmark Baptists stressed "adult conversions, revivals,. ..hard
and violent demonstrations, painful exhaustions" and "near paranoid
church independence" more than other Baptist groups.11 In his theol-
ogy and personal temperament, Pruitt most closely approximated
W.O. Carver, a "mild and gentle" Professor of Missions and World
Religions at the Louisville Seminary, who fought against both the
fundamentalist and liberal polarization of Baptists, advanced interde-
nominational understanding and ecumenical movements, and urged
respect for other Christian and non-Christian religions.12

In late I88I, shortly before his twenty-fifth birthday, C.W. Pruitt
boarded the train to San Francisco on one of the first cross-country
rail trips.13 In San Francisco he embarked for Yokohama and Shang-

114

hai. The Secretary of the Foreign Missions Board, Dr. H.A. Tupper,
gave Pruitt funds for two. "He thought I looked so young and lonely
that I ought to be able to persuade some young woman to accom-
pany me."14 In Shantung he married Presbyterian missionary Ida
Tiffany, who with C.W. opened the mission station in Hwanghsien
and evangelized in the countryside of Eastern Shantung province
until her death from typhoid in I884. Of fourteen Southern Baptist
missionaries appointed to the North China station after I88I, all but
C.W. had died or returned to the United States by I884.15 He and his
second wife, Anna Seward Pruitt, would remain in China until I936,
becoming two of the four Southern Baptists (of 620 total) who served
over fifty years in China.16

After C.W.'s first wife died, he continued to evangelize in the
countryside alongside longtime missionaries stationed in Tengchow:
T.P. and Martha Crawford, J.B. and Eliza Hartwell, and Lottie Moon.
(Edmonia had returned to the United States.) When additional re-
cruits were laid low by tuberculosis, the Hwanghsien station was
forced to close in I887. He traveled to Hwanghsien, Chaoyuen,
Laichow, Pingtu, Tsingtao, and Chimo, on a set route from Tengchow,
in accordance with the Southern Baptist itinerating strategy.17 (See
accompanying map showing the North China mission field.) Pruitt's
evangelistic efforts met with their greatest success in the inland
village of Pingtu. He attributed this to Pingtu's agricultural economy in
contrast to the acquisitive, competitive spirit of commercially-based
coastal towns such as Hwanghsien and Tengchow.18 Following Lottie
Moon's strategy, C.W. found the Chinese more responsive to infor-
mal conversations than to formal preaching. By answering general
questions about the United States as well as Christianity, he felt he
"sowed" his Gospel seeds on fertile ground.

While farming for Christ among the Chinese, C.W. Pruitt and other
foreign missionaries planted seeds of information and attitudes about
China in American church congregations. Hoping to promote a kindred
spirit with Chinese peasants, his letters to personal friends and
family, as well as missionary publications, described North China in
terms understandable to North Georgia farmers. His farmer's eye
noticed that, in comparison with Forsyth County terrain, Shantung's
hills were rugged and barren of all vegetation except small pines
planted for fuel. Carefully terraced miniature farms produced re-

115

20 40 60 80 M

0 20 40 60 80 100

C.W. Pruitt's Itineration Route in North China. From Irwin T. Hyatt, Jr., Our Ordered
Lives Confess: Three Nineteenth Century American Missionaries in East Shantung
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), 1976 by The President and
Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission.

markably good wheat crops in the dry season.19 For the Baptist Sun,
he wrote a lengthy five-part series, "Farming in China," in which he
elaborated at some length on soil conditions, fertilizers, terracing,
plowing, and the various types of fruits and vegetables.20

C.W. also used agricultural metaphors for evangelism. To his
Georgian readers, he explained the daunting task of heathen conver-
sion thus: "Instead of finding the land ready for sowing the seed, we
must clear away dense thickets of undergrowth, and give valuable
time to rolling together and burning logs the accumulation of centu-
ries."21 "I am now in the business of cleaning and in a few little
patches sowing the seed."22

Pruitt's attempts to promote a bond between Georgian and Chi-
nese farmers were motivated by the need for additional reinforce-
ments on the North China mission field. Year after year, his letters to
friends and missionary journals pleaded for others to answer the call
to become missionaries. C.W. appealed to his readers' religious and
regional identity. "What a grand State of Baptists we Georgians are,
and yet are we doing our duty?... I am the only man from Georgia in
all the foreign fields."23 Much of C.W.'s concern was prompted by the
high turnover of missionaries in the North China station. For a time,

116

those families not discouraged by death, disease, or discomfort were
persuaded to join T.P. Crawford's breakaway "Gospel Mission" in
western Shantung. Influenced by the doctrine of extreme congrega-
tional independence peached by Tennessee "Landmarkism,"
Crawford's Gospel Mission advocated no financial support for Chi-
nese Christian workers from the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission
Board.24

C.W. Pruitt fervently argued that the North China mission station
deserved the support of Georgia Baptists as well as additional mis-
sionary reinforcements. He cited several reasons for his passionate
conviction. Shantung, a province approximately the size of Georgia,
supported a population of almost three million people. The city of
Hwanghsien, whose Baptist mission was forced to close for want of a
missionary family, had 1 40,000 residents. He estimated three or four
families would be necessary to respond adequately to the growing
interest in Christianity in Hwanghsien alone.

Second, Chinese living in Sha-ling, Pingtu district, showed an
extraordinary spiritual awakening after Lottie Moon took up resi-
dence in the village and singlehandedly continued the work which Ida
Tiffany Pruitt had begun before her death in I884.25 C.W. baptized the
first church members in I889.26 For lack of a Western missionary, the
Sha-ling church was led by a native Chinese pastor. (Shantung
would become a "hotbed of indigenous Christian development" in the
years immediately following the Republican Revolution, I9II.)27 Pruitt
ministered to his "flock" long distance, traveling the arduous route
through driving snow in order to comfort the victims of violent perse-
cution.28 He felt the Chinese Christians deserved to have greater
spiritual support from Western Christians than he alone was able to
provide.

C.W.'s third appeal was a personal one. Although he had remar-
ried in I888, he continued to struggle with loneliness and social
ostracism as the only missionary except T.P. Crawford in the entire
region. "I need some of my Georgian brethren for help and coun-
sel."29 Just before his first furlough after ten years on the field, he
wrote, with considerable nostalgia, "No skies are so bright as one's
native skies, and no hearts so warm as those of brethren. As much as
I love this land and her people, it has never lessened in the least my
far greater love for North Georgia, the home of my boyhood."30

117

C. W. Pruitt astride donkey at center-rear. His wife, Anna, and daughter, Ida, are in the
sedan chair. North China, 1890. All are wearing Chinese garments. Pruitt Family
Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Harvard University.

Pruitt repeatedly assured his readers (potential recruits) that the
Shantung climate, "as healthy as any in the world," was quite equal to
Georgia's climate for vigorous work and a long life.31 In light of the
numerous deaths of other missionaries, including his first wife and
two children of his second marriage, Pruitt's assertion appears disin-
genuous. However, Pruitt himself, his second wife, Anna, and his
daughter, Ida, who all lived vigorous lives in China for fifty years,
were proof that Westerners could survive the harsh living conditions
in North China. (Three other sons, John, Robert, and Dudley, also
spent many years in China.)

The passages of C.W. Pruitt's letters which made it into print
generally conformed to the religious tone, colorful description, and
anecdotal style proper for denominatinal publications.32 Missionary
journals exerted editorial prerogative in publishing excerpts of mis-
sionary letters. In addition to rational appeals to Georgian Baptists,
C.W. occasionally adopted the tactic popular among missionaries
which described the "heathen Chinee" in lurid terms calculated to
raise funds and volunteers.33 Pruitt's evocation of a "great mass of
the people ...a thousand years behind the times," victimized by

118

poverty and death, was classic missionary rhetoric whose legacy
lives on in contemporary American images of Asians. His list of
Chinese personality traits, many "vile beyond a name," was remarka-
bly like those in Arthur H. Smith's influential Chinese Characteristics,
written during the same period.34 Usually a cautious man who wrote
carefully balanced, rational analyses, C.W. was moved in 1888 to
claim that there was "not an honest man in the empire." 35

Remarkably often, however, C.W. used a positive appeal to poten-
tial American recruits. His underlying evangelistic premise was the
need to "respect and love the good in the Chinese."36 This required
some understanding of Chinese institutions as more than pagan
superstitions to be destroyed, as so many of his contemporaries
urged. Using a variety of missionary journals as his forum, C.W.
proceeded to discuss the Chinese family, holidays, entertainment,
educational system, and religious values. Sometimes he compared a
Chinese institution with an American one. He saw the esteemed
Confucian teacher as the counterpart of American preachers.37 The
several-week holiday during the Chinese New Year, which annoyed
many Americans attempting to conduct business transactions, was
presented as the Chinese Sabbath, "the only Sabbath they have
their great rest."38

Negative aspects of the Chinese character and institutions were
often balanced with positive. The love of formalism and stability,
although detrimental to both Western science and Christianity, pro-
moted cultural unity and strength for centuries. The Chinese family
system was a considerable hindrance to individual Christian conver-
sion, but offered its members necessary mutual support and depend-
ence.39

In marked departure from missionary stereotyping of "the" Chi-
nese, Pruitt observed a variety of Chinese responses to the West.
Discussing the civil service exam system, the key to Confucian
governmental control, C.W. distinguished liberal officials who inte-
grated Western science into the Confucian classics, conservative
literati who objected to all Western knowledge as irrelevant to pass-
ing the exams, and the "lower classes" who treated the Confucian
classics as immutable sacred texts.40

Finally, C.W. Pruitt was one of few missionaries who retained a
balanced view of American Christians, an objectivity which many

119

people lose immediately upon traveling abroad.41 If Chinese were
slaves to their fear of evil spirits and demons, many Americans were
equally enslaved by their passions and love of money.42 Referring to
the "rice Christians" whose pecuniary motives for conversion to
Christianity bothered T.P. Crawford enough to foreswear all United
States funding of Chinese Christian evangelists, C.W. commented,
"the Chinese have their faults and the love of money is one of the
greatest, but I seriously doubt if it is one whit greater than that of the
unregenerated American."43

He was able to distinguish between the Christian religion and
American culture at a time when foreign mission boards were influ-
enced by Horace Bushnell's Christian Nurture, which presented
Christianity as a matter of upbringing in a Christian (i.e. American
middle class Protestant) atmosphere.44 In the missionary debate
about the propriety of dressing in Chinese clothing, C.W. advocated
its adoption. Qualifying his position by acknowledging that his North
China experiences might not be applicable in all foreign mission
fields, C.W. argued that, compared with the American styles of the
day, Chinese padded garments were more comfortable in the winter
and loose-fitting coats were cooler in the summer. Western clothing
frightened mules and children, provoked barking dogs, and prompted
"a thousand and one" questions. Reasoning that the missionaries
wanted to gain the Chinese, "they in no wise desirous of gaining us,"
missionaries should make all reasonable concessions without sacri-
ficing Christianity. "Fashion and form are no part of our spiritual reli-
gion."45

In his presentation of China and the Chinese to American church
audiences, C.W. Pruitt avoided the "we-they" framework through
which most people saw the American missions and the host coun-
tries. He encouraged Americans to go beyond their view of the
Chinese as the psychological "other," negative counterpoint to all
American national character traits. "Some things in this country strike
one as the densest ignorance but then I remember that with all of us
there are limits to our knowledge."46

The objectivity, balance, and humility reflected in C.W.'s letters to
friends and articles to mission journals may have reached American
audiences during numerous talks while he was on furlough to the
United States in I89I. More likely, such subtle messages were over-

120

shadowed by descriptions of poverty and depravity as well as by
exhibitions of Chinese clothing modeled by his children before con-
gregations throughout the American South and Mid-West.

Upon the Pruitts' return to China, their evangelical methods and
philosophy were modified in several ways. Anna seems to have
taken on the task of corresponding with mission boards and publica-
tions while C.W.'s attention turned to translation. In addition to hym-
nals and Robertson's Studies of the New Testament, his "crowning"
work was the translation of Dr. John A. Broadus' Commentary on
Matthew.47 Increasingly, the efforts of both Anna and C.W. Pruitt
turned from evangelistic "itinerations" throughout the countryside to
the Hwanghsien mission station and schools.

The Hwanghsien mission station had joined the North China region
of the Southern Baptist Mission Board in 1881, staffed by C.W. Pruitt,
N.W. Halcomb and their wives.48 Closed in 1887 when death and

ness took their toll, the station was reopened after C.W. married
Anna Seward in February, I888.49

The mission station and Pruitt residence was a Chinese compound
in Sung-chia-t'an village bought by the Baptist Mission from the
principal family of Hwanghsien. The Ting family settled for the very
low price of $1660.31 because the property was haunted. (The
Pruitts' yearly expenditures amounted to $1000 in those days.) Rela-
tives and neighbors, aware that Mr. Ting's motive for selling the
compound was not fear of ghosts but the need for ready cash to
support his opium addiction, resented the compound's sale to foreign
devils. But the Pruitts had acted honorably in the transactions and the
neighbors' resentment died down. Possession of the property was
unusually peaceful and happy.50

Not all mission compounds had been secured as peacefully as the
Pruitts'. Two longstanding Baptist and Presbyterian patriarchs on the
North China mission field, T.P. Crawford and Calvin Mateer, used
confrontational and underhanded means to buy or rent property.
When neighbors' outrage against the block-busting tactics turned
nasty, the United States consul, or in Mateer's case, the Navy, was
called in to restore the peace. Crawford made matters worse by
challenging Chinese rules for the proper alignment of buildings
("geomancy"),to avert natural disaster in the wake of the foreign
military incursion. Mateer's home illustrated another form of insensi-

121

tivity toward the Chinese, according to some, by its profusion of
Western luxuries in the midst of Chinese poverty.51 !

The Ting family compound in Sung-chia-t'an village, Hwanghsien,
consisted of seven courtyards and eleven one-story houses off those
courtyards. It was as long as a small city block and almost half as
wide. The Pruitts used the Ancestral Hall as the chapel, lived in the
House of the Women, and established the dormitory rooms of the
boys' boarding school in the House of Those Who Must Also Be
Cared For.52 Various modifications such as a baptismal font in the
Ancestral Hall, and additions such as a water pump and distiller, a
cider/vinegar press, Grand Rapids-style American furniture, and an
American vegetable garden were made to "make a tasteful, civilized,
cultivated home... in the midst of heathenism."53

Anna Pruitt utilized this "real Christian home" as the primary agency
for evangelizing Chinese women and children.54 Despite extensive
adaptations, however, Anna continued to feel imprisoned by the high
walls of the Chinese compound and was relieved when the family
and many other missionaries moved to Western-style buildings in
Chefoo after the Boxer Rising of I900.55 C.W., on the contrary,
considered "the beautiful Chinese house" in Hwanghsien to be the
family home long after they moved away.56

The Pruitts opened a school for boys in I894 after visiting the
Southern Baptist mission school in Canton. With this decision, they
definitively broke with T.P. Crawford's sectarian Gospel Mission,
which criticized mission schools, hospitals, and other social institu-
tions as non-evangelical. Crawford's position echoed the majority
opinion of foreign mission boards between I838 and I877, when
Presbyterian Calvin Mateer defended missionary educational institu-
tions at the First General Conference of Protestant Missionaries in
Shanghai. By I890 Mateer's educational initiative had stimulated a
much larger role for Christian missions in China than pure evangel-
ism had played.57 Anna Pruitt sympathized with the Gospel Mission's
concern that secular education would weaken the evangelistic pur-
pose of missions, but criticized Crawford for leaving Christian Chi-
nese children uneducated or, perhaps worse yet, driving them into
Presbyterian schools.58

Anna undertook major responsibility for administering the
Hwanghsien mission school. C.W. actively supported her efforts by

122

helping to care for their small children and by substitute teaching on
occasion. He appreciated her role as a teacher and didn't view the
work as draining energy away from her wifely duties.59 In this he
differed from T.P. Crawford, who forced his wife, Martha, to choose
between him and her successful school, and from Calvin Mateer,
who reorganized his wife Julia's school, and took over the older boys'
education.60

C.W. concentrated his own educational efforts on translating reli-
gious texts and training native Chinese pastors. In 1904, his training
center became the Bush Theological Seminary. C.W. was named
President of the seminary after Mercer University in Macon, Georgia,
granted him the doctor of divinity degree he had sacrificed twenty-
three years before.61 By I920, under Pruitt's administration,
Hwanghsien became a center of Southern Baptist education in China.
"Tsung Shi" (Pursuit of Truth) School, also called by the more prosaic
name, North China Baptist College, included the Bush Theological
Seminary, a normal department, industrial and agricultural training,
grade school, and kindergarten. All classes above the primary level
were co- educational, a "daring experiment" for its time.62

According to C.W., the civil unrest throughout North China during
the 1920s never affected the Pursuit of Truth School.63 The worldwide
economic depression of the 1930s, greatly reducing Southern Baptist
appropriations for the college, proved to be more damaging than
bandits.64 Still, by the time of the Pruitts' retirement from active
missionary status in 1938, the educational center they had founded in
Hwanghsien was a strong component of Southern Baptist work in
China. Under C.W.'s leadership, the Theological Seminary had de-
veloped into one of the "crowning jewels" of the Southern Baptist
Convention's Foreign Mission Board.65 Following the policy of the
Southern Baptist Convention, which encouraged Chinese leader-
ship, K.S. Wong, a graduate of Georgetown College, Kentucky, and
Lee Mai Wang, took over the administration of the school when the
Pruitts retired.66

The quality of C.W. Pruitt's leadership in the Hwanghsien mission
station, which stressed harmonious relations and encouraged the
leadership potential of others, differed markedly from that of other
longtime Baptist and Presbyterian missionaries on the North China
field. Fellow Baptist T.P. Crawford, whose Gospel Mission broke

123

away from the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, has been
called a "totally reactionary evangelist" who "never liked the Chinese
very much." Influenced by Tennessee "Landmarkism," which was
concerned with maintaining Baptist purity over interdenominationa1
and ecumenical relations, Crawford cast all mission issues in terms
of doctrinal purity. Preaching sermons of "great force and effect" 1
emotionally exhausting revivals, Crawford sought to violently "up-
root" heathenism and "plant" Christianity in its place. He turned his
Tengchow church into a center of business, mediation, and entertain-
ment and made himself indispensable to church members while
destroying all fledgling Chinese leadership.67

The other longtime Southern Baptist presence in North China, J.B
Hartwell, came across even less sympathetically than Crawford in his
correspondence with the Foreign Mission Board. Although he die
ordain a Chinese pastor to serve his Tengchow congregation in his
absence, his motive was less to encourage native leadership than tc
defend his turf from Crawford. Sanctimonious, self-righteous, anc
sadistic, he was eventually reprimanded by the Foreign Missior
Board and sent to work among Chinese immigrants in California.68

History has shown Presbyterian Calvin Mateer in a much more
positive light. Translator, educational administrator, teacher, a "sur-
rogate father in a foreign land," Mateer personified the self-confident
optimistic, and expansive American pioneer with great love of ex-
perimentation and great faith in the future. Yet many of his achieve-
ments were driven by "compulsions. ..to conquer and to direct and tc
achieve...." He fashioned the character of his Chinese associates
according to his own design.69 Is it any wonder that, as Chinese
national consciousness came into its own during the 1920s, patriotic
Chinese reacted against Western missionaries as much as againsi
military and business leaders?

C.W. Pruitt's personality and leadership style were strikingly differ-
ent from the three above ruling spirits who, according to contempo-
rary observers, were driven to "make their presence felt on all sides
for power to be or do is exactly their line."70 C.W. believed the greai
work was to "help the people to some degree of love for us." Acknowl-
edging that this required considerable tact, he maintained "so long as
they hold the messengers in contempt they will never respect the
Lord."71 A demonstration of C.W. Pruitt's eventual acceptance of anc

124

)y the Chinese community is an official decree granted by the district
nagistrate acknowledging the great deeds of this blue-eyed, big-
losed foreign devil on behalf of the city and county of Hwanghsien.72

In this philosophy he resembled nobody so much as his good
riend, Lottie Moon. Lottie Moon, a single missionary woman who
ived alone among the peasants of P'ing-tu in the 1880s, is still
evered by the Southern Baptist Church for her sacrificial devotion to
he Chinese.73 What has been lost in the Lottie Moon story, however,
ire the very qualities of leadership which set C.W. Pruitt and her
apart from most other missionaries. After Lottie Moon's experience
iving among the Chinese in P'ing-tu, she stopped thinking of herself
is wiser and better than the Chinese, the basic Christian premise
hat drove missionaries to China. She no longer joined in other
nissionaries' comments about Chinese dullness and stupidity. In
act, she rarely congregated with other missionaries, with the pos-
sible exception of the Pruitt family.74 In ironic refutation of Arthur H.
Smith's newly published Chinese Characteristics, which concluded
hat the very "Chineseness" of Chinese culture worked against Chris-
ianization, the church in Sha-ling, P'ing-tu, founded by Lottie Moon
and C.W. Pruitt, developed into the greatest Southern Baptist evan-
gelistic center under a native Chinese pastor.75

Since Lottie Moon's death in 1912, the year after the Chinese
Republican Revolution, and C.W. Pruitt's death in 1946, as the Chi-
lese Civil War intensified, the terms of America's "special relation-
ship" with China have changed several times. Decades of silence
and hostility between the two countries followed the Communist
victory of 1949. After the United States extended diplomatic relations
o the People's Republic in 1978, Sino-American business, diplo-
natic, and cultural ties slowly have been revived. A small but zealous
Chinese Christian community thrives throughout China despite offi-
cial persecution during the Cultural Revolution. In an increasingly
nulti-polar world, China is becoming a respected power. The domi-
leering leadership style represented by T.P. Crawford at its worst
and Calvin Mateer at its best is no longer appropriate (if it ever was).
\t this juncture in history, Lottie Moon and C.W. Pruitt offer alterna-
te models for American interactions with China. Moon and Pruitt
approached the Chinese with humility instead of pride, as equals
ather than their betters. Both were willing to acknowledge the posi-

125

tive in Chinese institutions, values, and people. They were willing tc
be changed by their encounter with China, even while offering some
thing of American institutions, values, and themselves.

Perhaps a missionary's internal change can best be detectec
through his theology. In a brief autobiographical reflection written ir
Atlanta after his retirement, C.W. Pruitt looked back with respect anc
affection to the education and theological training he received frorr
teachers in Georgia during the 1870s, when he walked the lint
between religious liberalism and fundamentalism. He then contin
ued,

The idea of the deity has grown in my mind until now... I realize
the He fills all space and maintains relations with all creature!
and loves all intelligent beings as children with capacity fo
unlimited development. This is the idea of God I should lovt
dearly to pass on to all my children.76

After devoting fifty years to studying the Chinese language, classi
cal literature, and culture, in order to evangelize, translate biblica
commentary, and administer a Western-style educational institution
Pruitt's moderate Southern Baptist understanding of God seemed tc
take on a universalistic, mystical quality from the Chinese he ha(
come to save.

NOTES

1 C.W. Pruitt, "Life of Cicero Washington Pruitt: Composed By Himself," typed mss., n.p
n.d., p. 1 . This and all of the original Pruitt family papers are in the possession of Marjorii
King before deposit in the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
Radcliffe College, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

2CW.P.,"Life,"p. 2.

3 Irwin T. Hyatt, Jr., Our Ordered Lives Confess: Three American Missionaries in Shantung
Province (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, I976), p. 51.

4 Hyatt, p. 4

5 Hyatt, p. 3.

6 Frank K. Means, "Southern Baptist China Mission History Project," International Bulletin c
Missionary Research 9 (April I985), p. 64. Murray A. Rubinstein, "Witness to the Chinesi
Millennium: Southern Baptist Perceptions of the Chinese Revolution, I9II-I92I," presentei
at the Conference on the Impact of American Missionaries on U.S. Attitudes and Policie:
Toward China, U.S. International University, San Diego, California, October, I987, p. 4.

7 Charles L. Chaney, "The Missionary Situation in the Revolutionary Era," in Americat
Missions in Bicentennial Perspective, ed. R. Pierce Beaver (South Pasadena: Willian
Carey Library, American Society of Missiology, I977), pp. 1,17, 20, 23, 24.

8 Hyatt, p. 97. Anna Seward Pruitt, Up From Zero in North China (Nashville, Broadmai
Press, I939), pp. 23-24.

126

Hyatt, pp. 98-99.

C.W.P., "Life," p. 4.

Rubinstein, p. 29. Hyatt, pp. 233-34.

Rubinstein, pp. 19-20, 26, 29.

Ida Pruitt, A China Childhood (San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, I978), p. 3.

C.W.P., "Life," p. 6.

A.S.P. Zero, p. 54.

Means, p. 64. Anna Pruitt actually served between 49 and 50 years. Rosewell Hobart
Graves purportedly served the longest, 57 years, but Hyatt, p. 59, reports that Martha
Crawford served 58 years.
' Rubinstein, pp. 6-7.

1 C.W.P., "A Recent Trip to Pingtu," Dec. 20, 1887, n.p. (Articles by C.W.P. are from family
scrapbooks in the Pruitt collection. Date and place of publication often are unnoted.)
1 C.W.P. letter to Frank Nicholls, Cumming, Ga., Aug. 9, 1882. (Letters are in designated
files in the Pruitt collection.)
1 C.W.P., "Farming in China," n.p., c. 1888.

C.W.P., "Success in China," n.p. Je 24, 1889.
' C.W.P. letter to Brother Corn, Je 19, I889.
1 C.W.P. letter to Brother Corn, Chefoo, Je 1 9, 1 889.
1 Hyatt, pp. 59, 233-34. A.S.P., p. 51 .

' Anna Seward Pruitt, "Sketch of the Life of Cicero Washington Pruitt," n.p., n.d., p. 5.
1 Hyatt, p. 1 1 1 .
' Rubinstein, p. 55.

' C.W.P., "Persecution in Pingtu," n.p., My 8, I889.

1 C.W.P. letter to J.H. Kilpatrick, Tengchow, Jan. 18, I889, Christian Index, n.d.
1 C.W.P., letter to the Christian Index, Hwanghsien, Ap. 29, 1891.

C.W.P. letter to Brother Bell, Oct. 24, 1887, to J.H. Kilpatrick, Jan. 18, I889.
1 Rubinstein, p. 73.

1 Charles W. Hayfcrd, "Chinese and American Characteristics: Arthur H. Smith and His
China Book," in Christianity in China: Early Protestant Missionary Writings, ed. by Suzanne
Wilson Barnett and John King Fairbank (Cambridge, Mass.: Committee on American-East
Asian Relations of the Department of History and the Council on East Asian Studies,
Harvard University, 1985), p. 153.
'Hayford, p. 153.

' C.W.P. "China's Need of the Gospel," May 2, I888. "Outlook in China," for the Messenger,
c. I895.

5 C.W.P., "Success in China," n.p., Je, 24, I889.
' C.W.P., "Religious Instruction in China," n.p., n.d.
! C.W.P., "The New Year in China," (2 parts), n.p., n.d.
! C.W.P., "Some Chinese Traits," n.p., Mar. 12, 1890,

' "Competitive Examinations in China," n.p., Dec. 22, I887. "Chinese Family Life," Jl 24,
I893.

1 C.W.P., "Competitive Examinations in China," Dec. 22, 1887.

? In his analysis of Arthur Smith's Chinese Characteristics, Charles Hayford faults Smith for
lacking an objective perspective of his own country, in the tradition of Herman Melville or

Mark Twain, whose writings critiqued American society, p. 1 65. 1 am suggesting that C.W.

Pruitt's letters, unlike Smith's book, balanced the good and the bad in America as well as in

China.

3 C.W.P., "The New Year in China,"

1 C.W.P., "Mission Methods," for the Religious Herald, Chefoo, n.d.

127

45 Hayford, p. 160.

46 C.W. P., "Missionaries Adopting Heathen Customs, etc.: The Other Side," The Central,
Nov. 19,1889.

47 C.W.P., "An Interesting Chinese Doctor," Hwanghsien, My 12, 1893.

48 Anonymous, "A Hero's Prayer," n.p., n.d.

49 A.S. P., Zero, p. 34.

50 Wedding Announcement of C.W. and Anna Pruitt, Feb. 16, I888.
Published in unidentified missionary journal.

51 A.S. P. I894 letter, pp. 49, 96-98, I03. I. P., p. 7. Paul A. Varg, Missionaries, Chinese and
Diplomats: The American Protestant Missionary Movement in China, 1890-1952 (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1952), p. 20.

52 Hyatt, 13-14,21, 148, 151. A.S.P., Zero, 31.
53 1. P., pp. 5-8 and frontispiece.

54A.S.P.,l891,p. 29. I893, p. 132. Jan. 16, I899. March 5, I900. I. P., pp. 15-16.

55 Marjorie King, "American Women's Open Door to Chinese Women: Which Way Does it
Open?" in Women's Studies International Forum, special issue on European Women and
Imperialism, ed. by Peg Strobel and Nupur Chaudhuri, forthcoming.

56 A.S.P., I89I, p. 29. I893, p. 132. Jan. 16, I899. March 5, I900. I. P., pp. 15-16.
57C.W.P., "Life," II, p. 1.

58 Hyatt, pp. I76, I8I.

59 A.S. P., The Day of Small Things (Richmond: Foreign Mission Board of the Southern
Baptist Convention, I929), pp. 26-27.

60 A.S.P. letters, Nov. 24, I895, I 3, I898. I90I, p. 14. 1893, p. 190. I894JI, p. 40.

61 Hyatt, pp. 40,166-171.
62A.S.P.,"Sketch,"p. 7.

63 A.S.P. , Zero, p. 125.

64 "President of Chinese College Here for Leave of Absence, May Find Buildings Wrecked,"
Dallas, c. 1926.

65 A.S. P., Zero, p. 134.

66 Rubinstein, p. 14.

67 Rubinstein, p. 9.

68 Hyatt, pp. 19-23,233.

69 Hyatt, pp. 19-20,39.

70 Hyatt, pp. 231-33, 235.

71 Hyatt, p. 235.

72 C.W.P. letter to Bro. Barnwell, Huanghsien, Ap. 18, I888.

73 A.S.P., "Sketch."

74 Hyatt, pp. 118, 120, 130+. See also Murray A. Rubinstein, "Christianity in China: One
Scholar's Perspective of the State of the Research in China Mission and China Christian
History, I964- 1986," Chung-kuo shih yen chiu t'ung hsun ("Newsletter for Modern Chinese
History" no. 4 (September I987), pp. 111-143. Rubinstein contrasts the hagiographic
treatment of Lottie Moon by Catherine B. Allen in The New Lottie Moon Story (Nashville:
Broadman Press, I980) with Hyatt's scholarly, though also sympathetic, account.

75 A.S.P. letters to her family in Tallmadge, Ohio, make periodic reference to visits from Miss
Moon during these years.

76 Hyatt, p. 1 1 1 .

77 C.W.P., "Life."

128

Contemporary Georgia-East Asian
Relations and the Future

129

Georgia, Atlanta, and the East Asian World:

An Economist's Overview of Interactions

Since World War II

ERNEST W. OGRAM, JR.'

Since World War II, East Asian trade has become increasingly
important to the United States in terms of the total value of all U.S.
international trade. By 1982, according to Discovery magazine, the
United States depended economically "more on East Asia than on
Western Europe. Since 1975 transpacific trade has exceeded the
total of all transatlantic trade by value."1 One notable component of
transpacific trade is the commerce between the United States and
Japan, which by itself by 1 982 exceeded the combined dollar value of
trade between the United States and the United Kingdom, West
Germany, and France by some two billion dollars.

The relatively recent phenomenon of foreigners' direct investment
in the United States tells a story similar to that of trade. This article
will first take a brief look at the changing patterns of foreign invest-
ment in the United States with particular emphasis on the Southeast.
We will then focus on Georgia, and specifically Atlanta, as distinct
participants in trade with East Asian countries.

Attraction of the Southeast

Data collected by the Conference Board indicates that in recent

*Dr. Ogram is Professor of International Business Economics at Georgia State University and
was Director of its Institute of International Business from 1 964 to 1 976. He received his Ph.D.
in economics from University of Illinois in 1957. Professor Ogram teaches international
economics, marketing, finance, and comparative business systems, and has published in
these fields.

130

years, German, British, and Japanese firms have increased their
share of total foreign investment in the United States.2 Moreover, the
Conference Board survey pointed up a shifting of foreign investment
in the United States toward the Sunbelt, and particularly to the
Southeast.3 In 1977 Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia were not
even listed among the top five states for foreign investment in the
United States. In 1 979 the top five states were California, New York,
Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia.

A recent survey of French direct investment in the Southeast
mentioned a number of general considerations important for foreign-
ers contemplating investing in the United States. These factors in-
cluded a strong desire to diversify into other countries to spread the
financial risk, availability of raw materials, relative costs of production
including labor and energy, and existing and possibly future regula-
tions by the United States government that would discourage trade in
certain product categories.4 The attractions of the Southeast for
French investment, according to the survey, included ease of export-
ing and importing through the region's seaports and airports, the
strong economic growth that the region is experiencing, a favorable
attitude in general toward business development, and the high qual-
ity of life in that area.5

Because of world-wide recession, foreign trade in the Southeast
declined in 1982. Foreign direct investment continued to expand,
however, as it has for the last nine years. For the past several years,
the Southeast has led all other regions of the country in its share of
foreign direct investment in terms of employment, value added, plant
and equipment.

If total United States employment in manufacturing is considered
by state for the period 1969-80, the Southeast plus two states in the
Southwest, California and Texas, experienced significant gains while
the states of the Northeast and the Midwest suffered substantial
declines during the same period.6

If one compares the number of corporate headquarters of Fortune's
top 500 firms that have moved to the Southeast from 1971 through
1981, the increase has been just under 100%.7 The states of the
Northeast, Midwest, and California still dominate headquarters loca-
tions for the nation's top industrial firms. Southeastern growth, how-
ever, is significant because corporate headquarters tend to attract

131

other firms that provide support services for research and develop-
ment, corporate planning, and finance. A similar pattern of expansion
on corporate headquarters has also occurred in Fortune's second
500 industrial firms as well as in the service areas of trade, finance,
and insurance plus utilities.

The Southeast, with its vast timber resources and favorable geo-
graphical climate, has especially become a focal point for the lumber,
pulp, and paper industries. This, to a significant extent, explained
why Georgia Pacific Corporation moved its headquarters from Port-
land, Oregon to Atlanta, Georgia early in 1982.

International Activity of Southeastern Banks

The growth of trade and foreign direct investment in the Southeast
has led to a dramatic increase in the region's banking activities.
International trade through the ports of the Southeast in the 1970s
grew at a faster rate than that of the rest of the nation. Prior to World
War II, banks in New Orleans and Mobile were paramount in financ-
ing international trade through their respective ports because of the
historic role of these ports in dominating the international trade of the
Southeast. In the post-World War II period, banks in Miami and
Atlanta have come to the forefront as the fastest growing centers for
international banking activities in the Southeast. The explosive jump
in international banking activity, especially in Miami, is explained by
the sustained growth in Miami's trading and investment relationships
with Central American, South American, and Caribbean countries.
Furthermore, Miami banks, because of their aggressive marketing
practices, have become magnets for individual and corporate depos-
its from this same area. In addition, many United States multinational
firms with investment interests in Central and South America have
found it practical to locate their Latin America headquarters in Mi-
ami.8 Atlanta banks, on the other hand, have been adding to their
international deposit base because the city has come to serve as an
international center for transportation, finance, and related services
for the Southeast, a matter to be addressed in more detail later in this
paper.

The dynamic growth of the Southeast region, the favorable invest-
ment and geographical climate, and the fact that the support infra-
structure has been in place explain not only the rise in domestic

132

corporate activity in the Southeast. These factors also account for the
sustained increase in foreign investment activity in the region.

Initial Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese Investment in the
Southeast

Although corporations from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, West
Germany, and Canada are the largest investors by value in the
Southeast, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese companies have be-
come increasingly involved since approximately 1976.

In June 1 983 the first truck made its way along the assembly line at
Nissan Corporation's Smyrna, Tennessee, plant, which features in-
dustrial robots and other state-of-the-art technology. The plant, which
employed 2,650 by 1984, involves a Japanese investment of $500
million. The Smyrna plant represents the largest single investment by
any foreign company in the United States and the largest investment
by Nissan outside Japan. The Lancasters' and Waldner's articles in
this volume cite particulars of ongoing Japanese investment in Geor-
gia.

Korean and Taiwanese firms are also investing in the Southeast. In
Alabama, a Korean company announced that it will manufacture
microwave ovens and television sets. Sampo Corporation, a Tai-
wanese television set manufacturer, established a factory and re-
gional sales office in Norcross, Georgia.

Few other public concerns in recent years have generated as
much apprehension and emotion in the United States as foreign
investment in agricultural land. As a result of this intense concern, in
February 1980, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the
results of a study of the ownership pattern.9 One of the findings of this
study was that most foreign holdings are concentrated in the South-
east and in particular in Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina.
Certainly part of the explanation for this is the fact that southeastern
states in general are more liberal in their attitude toward foreign
ownership in agricultural land. East Asians count among other for-
eign buyers of Georgia pulpwood land.

Ongoing International Trade and Foreign Investment in Georgia

The view from the balcony of Atlanta's World Trade Club provides
an impressive indication of the impact of foreign investment on

133

Atlanta. Within a few blocks one can see the National Bank of
Georgia, owned by a Saudi financier; the Atlanta Hilton Hotel, partly
owned by the Kuwaiti Development Corporation; the Dutch-owned
Life Insurance Company of Georgia; the Atlantic Steel Company and
Cable Atlanta, owned by a Canadian firm; and the Equitable Building,
partially owned by Japan's Asahi Life Insurance Company. These
structures demonstrate Georgia's success in attracting foreign in-
vestment. According to ex-Georgia Governor George Busbee, who
solicited much of this commerce, international trade and foreign
investment in Georgia in 1981 immeasurably enhanced the State's
prosperity. "Manufacturing investments alone are in excess of $1.6
billion, with foreign firms providing more than 30,000 jobs in our
state," Busbee asserted. "In addition, recent estimates indicate that
Georgia is exporting in excess of $3 billion worth of manufactured
and agricultural products annually. That figure, according to the U.S.
Department of Commerce, creates 120,000 jobs within the state."10
Exports and foreign investment within Georgia created jobs, which in
turn expanded the State's income base, and provided successive
respending and consumption within the state.

Atlanta: An International City

Since before the American Civil War, Atlanta has been the com-
mercial hub of the Southeast. This happened because of Atlanta's
geographical location, its climate, its banking and insurance serv-
ices, and its pivotal transportation system.

One of the most exciting aspects of Atlanta's growth has been its
emergence as an international city. A number of criteria for an
international city have come to apply to Atlanta since 1973.

First, there is the matter of overseas flights from the city's new
airport. Hartsfield International, the second busiest airport in the
United States, serves as the gateway for direct overseas flights to
numerous European and Latin American destinations. United, Delta,
Continental, American, and Northwest Orient, U.S. -flag passenger
carriers servicing East Asia, have sales offices in Atlanta and con-
necting or direct flights out of Atlanta's airport to East Asia. Singapore
Air Lines and Korean Air Lines have established district sales offices
in Atlanta to service Asia-bound passengers and cargo originating at
Hartsfield and elsewhere in the Southeast. Japan Air Lines flies

134

directly from Atlanta to East Asia.

Second, a state law liberalizing foreign banking activity has re-
sulted in eighteen foreign banks establishing offices in Atlanta. Three
of these foreign banks are East Asian: the Bank of Tokyo, Fuji Bank,
and the Industrial Bank of Japan.

Third, one of Geogia's incentives to help promote international
trade is the state's first foreign trade zone, a duty free zone in
Shenandoah, near Hartsfield International Airport. The function of a
foreign trade zone is to permit entry of foreign goods into the zone
without payment of customs duties. Duties are paid only if the goods
are subsequently sold in the domestic market. Should the goods
previously imported be re-exported, no customs duties are paid.
These and other incentives have attracted over four hundred foreign
firms to establish facilities in Georgia since 1975. Among these are
seven East Asian foreign trading companies with offices in or near
Atlanta: Tatung Company, from Taiwan; and C. Itoh, Mitsui, Mitsub-
ishi, Nissho-lwai, Nissei Sangyo, and Toyo Menka Kaisha, all from
Japan.

Fourth, the opening in 1 976 of the Georgia World Congress Center
in Atlanta, which hosts increasing numbers of international meetings
and trade shows, provides an example of the state government's
growing assistance to international intercourse.

Fifth, part of any city's degree of internationalization involves the
number of foreign governments that feel obliged, because of trade
and investment considerations, to establish some type of formal
diplomatic representation within the city. In 1975 Atlanta had seven
consulates staffed by career diplomats and twenty-one honorary
consulates or trade offices in the city. Eight years later, the number of
career consulates had jumpted to thirteen and the countries with
trade offices or honorary consulates stood at twenty-seven. The
government of the Philippines opened a trade office in Atlanta early
in 1983. The expansion of consulates and trade offices in Atlanta
came about in part to service the increasing number of foreign
companies having trade and investment relationships within the
Southeast.

Sixth, a significant indicator in determining the degree of interna-
tionalization for any city is how many foreign nationals live there and
in what activities they participate.

135

The number of foreign natonals living in a city may be considered a
function of those that come when a foreign firm sets up a manufactur-
ing or other facility or who come on their own volition searching for
jobs or perhaps for an opportunity to start their own businesses.
Growing numbers of foreign nationals from East Asia have come to
Atlanta in recent years, especially from Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and
China.

Taiwan's Presence in Atlanta

Professor George Wang, formerly of National Taiwan University,
recently arrived in Atlanta and asserted that business opportunities in
Atlanta are very attractive to many Taiwanese. According to Profes-
sor Wang, Atlanta's principal attractions are a growing business com-
munity and the "courtesy and friendly relations that Atlantans have
with all peoples."11 Professor Wang estimated that Atlanta now has
about 4,000 Chinese residents, many of whom originate from Tai-
wan, as well as from Hong Kong, Indochina, mainland China, and
elsewhere.12

The government on Taiwan opened an Atlanta consulate, its first in
the Southeast, in June 1973. In 1979 the United States broke diplo-
matic relations with the government on Taiwan and formally recog-
nized China. Since 1979 a private organization, the Coordination
Council for North American Affairs, has represented the interests of
the government of Taiwan in Atlanta. (See Krebs' article, in this
volume, on the intricacies of Sino-American relations). Lin Tsun-
hsien, Director of the Coordination Council's Atlanta office in 1983,
explained that his government felt that locating a representative
office in Atlanta was logical because Atlanta not only was the com-
mercial and cultural center for the Southeast, but also the center for
international air cargo for the region. The director further stated his
government's procurement mission has purchased significant amounts
of Georgia peanuts and tobacco in recent years. He also expected
that his government would send a commercial attache to his office
because of Taiwan's increased trade and in the Atlanta area.

Andrew Li, the Council's secretary, commented as did Professor
Wang, that the reason why increasing numbers of Taiwanese have
immigrated to Atlanta is because of the business opportunities here,
plus the favorable geographical climate. He remarked that Atlanta

136

now has 170 Chinese restaurants, a ten-fold increase between 1972
and 1982. Many of Atlanta's restauranteurs are Taiwanese.

The Republic of Korea's Presence in Atlanta

In June 1976 a Consulate General of the Republic of Korea was
estabished in Atlanta. The consul general in 1983, Hak Won Song,
stated that his government felt that Atlanta was becoming the center
for trade and investment activity in the Southeast for his country.
Because of this fact his government at the same time determined it
should also establish a regional office of the Korea Trade Promotion
Corporation (KTPC). The KPTC is involved in trade and investment
promotion in both directions. Mr. Song said that KTPC was interested
in promoting joint ventures between Korean and American firms that
would result in increased exports from the United States to Korea.

Mr. Song estimated that 7,000 Korean nationals live in the Atlanta
metropolitan area and that the reason for most of them coming here
was to start their own businesses.

Japan's Presence in Atlanta

Yoshinori Tsujimoto, acting Japanese consul general in Atlanta in
1983, indicated that the consensus within his government back in
1974 was that Atlanta was the hub of transportation, banking, and
insurance services within the southeastern United States. Mr. Tsujim-
oto also remarked that "the enthusiastic reception given to the Japa-
nese business community from former Governor Busbee and other
state officials has been a positive force in helping Japanese firms
decide on a Georgia location for manufacturing plants and other
facilities."

Nippan-Daido was the first Japanese supermarket chain to estab-
lish itself in Atlanta. The increased number of companies from East
Asian countries that have located in Atlanta over the last several
years, and the increasing numbers of nationals from these countries
who have moved to Atlanta for other reasons, prompted Nippan
Daido in 1981 to consider opening an Atlanta supermarket. In Octo-
ber 1982, opening day customers at Nippan Daido's Atlanta market
found the store's shelves filled with all kinds of Asian delicacies. The
Nippan Daido store offers a full line of groceries including specialty
seafood as well as Asian books and magazines for Georgia's ex-

137

panding Asian population.

The facility was Nippan Daido's fourth to be established in the
United States and its first in the Southeast. It was not by any means
the first East Asian grocery to be established in the Atlanta area.
Koreans operated a spacious "Asian Super Market" in Atlanta's
Broadview Shopping Plaza.

The fact that close to 20 percent of the 500 foreign companies thai
have located in Georgia are Japanese testifies to the state's suc-
cessful effort in attracting both small and large Japanese firms to
locate here. The Lancasters' and Waldner's articles give further
specifics on this recent growth.

China's Presence in Atlanta

The extent of recent contact between China and Georgia, including
Georgians who have been to China and Chinese scholars who have
come to Georgia, is covered in Krebs' article. Georgia's trade with
China does not nearly equal its trade with Taiwan despite visits to
China by ex-Governor Busbee, Trader Commissioner Milton Folds,
and International Trade Director John Welsh to stimulate commerce.
The Shanghai exhibit at the July 1982 Asian Gift Show in Atlanta
marked the first sales effort of its kind by a People's Republic ol
China firm in Georgia. Coca-Cola, as Krebs mentions, made a pio-
neering commitment to the China market, as it did some years ago in
Japan. In the view of former Undersecretary of State Georgia Ball
"The question no one can answer today is whether we are witnessing
merely a Chinese version of Lenin's NEP (National Economic
Plan)-that brief season of free enterprise which the Soviets permitted
in 1921 -or whether Peking is definitely moving with traditional prag-
matism toward some kind of indigenous compromise between Marx
and Adam Smith."13 To the extent that Georgia, Atlanta, and the
Southeast have a role to play in future trade and investment with the
PRC is a function of the decisions that must be made in Beijing
(Peking).

Conclusions

As an economist, I feel confident in asserting that Atlanta and
Georgia are well on their way to prominence in the Southeast relative
to trade and investment with Asian countries. The state's economy

138

icreasingly feels the impact of the East Asian world in terms of
xports, imports, diplomatic representation, foreign investment, cul-
jral ties, and the ever-increasing number of nationals from East
,sian countries living and working in Georgia.

NOTES

Discovery, (May-June, 1982), p. 64A.

Announcements of Foreign Investments in U.S. Manufacturing Industries. The Confer-
ence Board, Investment Data Department, Fourth Quarter, 1980.
The term "Sunbelt" generally applies to the southern tier of states from the east to the west
coast. Within the Sunbelt states there are two sub-areas, the Southeast and the South-
west. The Southwest is generally considered to begin with Texas and extends west
through the southern half of California. The Southeast extends east from Texas to the
Atlantic Ocean.

French Investment in the Southeast, Bernard Imbert, Georgia World Congress Institute
and Credit Lyonnais, March 1980.
Ibid, p. 48.

Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, December 1982, p. 56. "Southeast-
ern Employment after the Recession."
Ibid., p. 62. The number increased from 10 to 19.

Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, October, 1982, p. 15. "International
Banking Activity in the Southeast: Rapid Growth and Change."

Agricultural Economic Report No. 447, February, 1980, p. iii. "Foreign Ownership of U.S.
Agricultural Land." Natural Resource Economics, Division of Economics, Statistics and
Cooperative Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Statement by Governor George Busbee in the introduction to Georgia Directory of
International Services (Atlanta, 1982), n.p.

Ann Valdes, "International City It's Becoming a Reality," Atlanta Journal/Atlanta
Constitution, May 13, 1979, p. 1E.
Ibid.

George Ball, "America and Asia in the 1980's: Prospects and Hazards," an unpublished
address to the Asia Society, New York, May 13, 1980.

139

The Georgia-Japan Relationship:
Into the Twenty-first Century

DAY LANCASTER*

For Americans, Japan may be a jumble of contradictory images.
Japanese quality automobiles, electronic products, and cameras
mingle with pictures of paper houses, rickshaws, and cheap toys ol
forty years ago. And to confuse matters further, there is often no cleai
differentiation between Japan and China. No wonder so many Ameri-
cans have such a hard time comprehending the "inscrutable" Japa-
nese.

In Georgia, however, there is a growing awareness and under-
standing of Japan and the Japanese that increasing interaction with
that country has brought on. The origins of this growing involvement
and some of the consequences, merit our attention.

The Japanese commonly identify Georgia with Gone With the
Wind, Jimmy Carter, and peanuts, in that order. Unfortunately, none
of them are contributing very much to Georgia's trade balance with
Japan, but at least the state does have a positive image as a result
At present, peanuts comprise a portion of Georgia's exports tc
Japan, but it is not large, due to tough competition from China,
Perhaps with a better marketing strategy that highlights their origin,
Georgia peanuts would do better in the Japanese market.

*Day Lancaster, Senior Project Manager for the State of Georgia Department of Industry anc
Trade, has also served as Managing Director of the Tokyo office of the Department. He was
born in Kobe, Japan, in 1 954, to missionary parents, and received a B.A. in Japanese studies
from Earlham College in 1976. He has worked as a Japanese-English interpreter foi
Matsushita Electronics Corporation [Panasonic], and has been employed by Topri, Inc.,
Japanese manufacturing company in Peachtree City, Georgia.

140

The largest quantifiable export product is kaolin. Approximately
400,000 tons of Georgia kaolin are shipped to Japan every year to be
used primarily in the paper industry. The paper industry also ac-
counts for the other major Georgia exports-wood and paper pulp.
Other products include soybeans, wheat, and poultry products.

In terms of agricultural exports, Georgia is at a disadvantage to
those states in the Midwest and West that are geographically closer
to Japan. Georgia's agricultural products must be considerably better
in quality and price in order to offset greater transportation costs.
Poultry products and wood and paper pulp have that advantage.

Unfortunately, exports of manufactured goods to Japan lag far
behind those of other states. Georgia traditionally has not had the
large industrial base that could support a strong export drive. In-
creasingly, however, more and more Georgia businessmen are step-
ping up their search for new markets, and though efforts are still in an
embryonic stage, in the 1990s we should see a growing number of
Georgia companies looking to the Japanese market place.

One example of this trend is the Carpet and Rug Institute, a
national organization headquartered in Dalton, Georgia. The Insti-
tute, in conjunction with the United States Department of Commerce,
sponsored a trade mission to Tokyo and Osaka in March 1983. Of
the sixteen participating companies, ten were from Georgia. The
carpet and rug industry in Japan is still not as technologically ad-
vanced as it is in the United States. Therefore, marketing opportuni-
ties for Georgia carpet makers should be better than for other types
of United States manufacturers whose expertise is superseded by
that of the Japanese.

Another example of growing interest in Japan was the visit to
Japan in May 1982 by members of Georgia Institute of Technology's
Advanced Technology Development Center. The purpose of the trip
was to pursue opportunities for Georgia's high technology compa-
nies to do business with Japanese firms, as well as to promote
Georgia as an investment location for Japanese capital.

These are some recent examples of trade activity between Geor-
gia and Japan. Several companies have been doing business in
Japan for many years. By far the earliest Georgia company to
establish operations in Japan was Coca-Cola, which began selling its
soft drinks back in the early 1900s. It took until 1957 to form Coca-

141

Cola/Japan. Even then, growth was limited because the Japanese
government, for reasons still unclear, imposed restrictions on the
ingredients needed to make Coke. In 1961 those restrictions were
lifted and the company began to expand. Within two years three
Coca-Cola bottling companies had been founded. And since that
time fifteen more have been formed. In 1990 there is virtually
nowhere in Japan where one cannot purchase a bottle or can of
Coke or of "Georgia," a coffee drink Coca-Cola/Japan began market-
ing several years ago exclusively for the Japanese market. In fact,
over half of Coca-Cola/Japan's product line was developed for Japa-
nese tastes and is not marketed elsewhere. That certainly reflects
the commitment that has made Japan Coca-Cola's third largest
market outside the United States.

Kleentex, a manufacturer of doormats headquartered in LaGrange,
also has a solid foothold in Japan. The company opened a sales
office in Tokyo in 1977. Soon after, Kleentex incorporated in Japan
and began production in the city of Akashi three and a half years
later. Business is apparently increasing steadily.

Another pioneer in the Japanese market was American Family Life
Assurance, based in Columbus. Starting with a representative sales
office in Tokyo in 1974, American Family was the first company to
offer cancer insurance in Japan. Since that time the company has ex-
panded rapidly to include twelve sub-branch sales offices with over
1500 agencies handling their insurance. By 1983 the Japanese
market accounted for fifty percent of American Family's total reve-
nues.

American companies in general have been quite successful in
exporting the fast food franchise business to Japan. McDonald's,
Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Dunkin Donuts were among the first;
and now Denny's, Wendy's, Mister Donut, Seven-Eleven, and
Hardee's, to name a few, have joined the ranks. The latest to take
advantage of this still-expanding market in Japan is Arby's of Atlanta.
They opened their first restaurant in May of 1982 and now have six
stores throughout Japan.

Besides these examples of Georgia companies that have actually
established subsidiaries or branch offices in Japan and are now
successfully conducting business, there are a number of firms that
are involved with Japanese business, but in a less visible fashion.

142

Major Atlanta banks have extensive correspondent relationships with
many of the large Japanese banks. And several Georgia companies
have supplier or customer relationships with Japanese manufactur-
ers.

In terms of the number of companies, the involvement of Georgia
business in Japan is small, but quite diversified. In terms of revenue,
however, Japan represents a substantial market for those firms
mentioned above. A large potential still remains for Georgia compa-
nies that are willing to invest the time and money to research the
Japanese market and provide a service or product that either fills a
need or competes effectively with what is already available.

The key words here are time and money. Very few foreign compa-
nies now doing business in Japan were instant successes. Consider-
able amounts of hard work, and a patient and committed home office,
are prerequisites for creating a successful operation in Japan. In the
opinion of this trade official, it seems that too often American compa-
nies have dropped out before really getting started, due to lack of
commitment on the part of top management. Some United States
companies have passed over a very lucrative market.

On the other side of the business relationship is the Japanese
presence in Georgia. With the dramatic expansion of Atlanta as a
regional center in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Japanese firms
began locating sales in the city. (See Professor Ogram's article in this
volume on Atlanta's expansion as an international city). A district
sales office of Japan Air Lines was among the first Japanese compa-
nies to arrive, along with general trading firms that needed a regional
presence in order to expand their export and import business in the
United States. Representative of this group were Mitsubishi Corpora-
tion and Mitsui and Co., two of the largest trading firms in Japan,
which opened in Atlanta offices in approximately 1970. By 1983
three of the top seven Japanese trading companies had opened
Atlanta offices to service the Southeast.

Following along the same lines, the United States subsidiary sales
companies of Japanese manufacturers also began putting offices
and warehouses in the Atlanta area. Panasonic, the sales arm of
Matsushita Electronics Corporation of America, opened a southeast-
ern regional sales warehouse and distribution center in Norcross,
Georgia, approximately the same time the trading companies were

143

moving in. Soon, other Japanese subsidiary sales companies, recog-
nizing the advantages of an Atlanta location for coverage of the
Southeast, began locating sales centers in and around the city. In
1 983 there were fifty-six United States subsidiary sales companies of
Japanese manufacturers located in Georgia, primarily in the Atlanta
area.

While Atlanta gained recognition as a prime spot to expand Ameri-
can markets, Georgia also gained increasing attention as an ideal
location for manufacturing operations. The first Japanese company
to utilize these advantages by establishing a factory in the state was
Yoshida Kogyo (YKK), the world's largest producer of zippers and
fasteners. After studying numerous possible locations in United States,
YKK decided that Macon, Georgia's favorable labor climate, low land
cost, geographical location, and excellent transportation system,
among other factors, justified putting their plant there.

Initially starting out with final assembly of zippers, the production
process at the YKK Macon plant now encompasses everything from
the spinning of yarn to stamping zipper sliders. What began as a
250,000 square foot facility employing 120 workers is now a sprawl-
ing 700,000 square feet with 600 employees on the payroll. In 1981
YKK purchased a nearby 250 acre tract of land on which to build a
major industrial/residential complex that is designed to fill the working
and living needs of YKK employees. When fully completed, it will
include several major manufacturing facilities as well as single and
multi-family housing with adjoining recreational facilities. Already, a
50,000 square foot monofilament plant has been completed and
another 250,000 square foot facility is currently under construction.

In 1973, when YKK made their move to Macon, Sony was the only
other Japanese company with a manufacturing base in the United
States. Consequently, YKK's decision received major attention in
Japan. This, coupled with the nearly simultaneous establishment of
the State of Georgia Department of Industry and Trade's Tokyo
office, served to highlight Georgia as a potential site for other Japa-
nese manufacturers looking to start making products in America.

Whether influenced by YKK's move or not, three Japanese textile-
related companies established their first United States factories in
Georgia shortly after YKK. Locating in Augusta, Columbus, and
Macon, these companies have begun fabric printing operations.

144

Partially spurred on by United States government pressure to com-
pete on equal terms with United States textile manufacturers, these
companies perceived Georgia's experienced textile work force as a
particular plus in their decisions to locate in the Peach State.

Subsequent manufacturing investment in Georgia has not followed
any particular pattern. Makers of products ranging from ceramic
capacitors to high voltage circuit breakers to automobile oil seals
have come from Japan to set up shop in Georgia. The approximately
thirty-five manufacturers that have invested in the state represent a
truly diversified product range. This illustrates the compatibility of
Georgia as a location for numerous types of industry. Georgia ranks
second in the nation for the number of Japanese factories in opera-
tion in one state.

Despite growing competition from other states in attracting Japa-
nese industry, Georgia remains in good position to maintain its lead
as a desirable location for Japanese investments. The momentum
generated by the nearly one hundred Japanese companies which
have come to the state has served to create an infrastructure unpar-
alleled outside the major metropolitan centers of Los Angeles, New
York and Chicago. This will continue to draw Japanese businesses to
Georgia in the future and further develop what is already consider-
able activity.

An early manifestation of the large Japanese presence in the state
was the formation of the Georgia konwakai (discussion group), an
organization made up of native Japanese company managers resid-
ing in Georgia. The konwakai provided an opportunity for Japanese
businessmen to get together to discuss common problems and
develop community projects, as well as socialize on an informal
recreational basis. As membership increased the group changed
their name to the Georgia shokokai (Japanese Chamber of Com-
merce) to reflect more accurately their expanded function in the
community.

The most notable accomplishment of the shokokai so far has been
the creation of a supplementary Saturday school for Japanese chil-
dren in the Atlanta area. For grades one through nine, Japanese
housewives with teaching experience hold classes in Japanese lan-
guage, science, and mathematics. Originally the school used class-
rooms at Oglethorpe University, but as enrollment grew, the shokokai

145

decided to relocate the school to more appropriate surroundings in
1980. With the assistance of Atlanta's Japanese Consulate, the
Georgia Department of Industry and Trade, and the Gwinnett County
Chamber of Commerce, the school moved to the Beaver Ridge
Elementary School in Norcross.

Also in 1980, since enrollment had reached one hundred pupils,
the Japanese government, through its Atlanta Consulate, dispatched
a full-time principal from Japan to supervise the school. In 1 990, over
400 Japanese children attend the school every weekend. The school
has satellite branches in Mableton, Columbus, and other Georgia
cities with a Japanese population nearby. These schools are major
incentives for Japanese companies trying to decide where to put their
United States facilities.

Another result of the concentration of Japanese businesses in the
Atlanta area is the proliferation of Japanese food stores and restau-
rants. In 1973 there was only one authentic Japanese restaurant in
the entire state. By 1983, there were ten that served traditional
Japanese cuisine, with another four specializing in steak dishes. In
1990 there are also at least ten Japanese and Asian food stores in
Atlanta that provide a full complement of cooking ingredients.

An interesting example of how a Japanese company directly influ-
enced the location of a Japanese restaurant in Atlanta is the case of
Hitachi, Ltd.'s telecommunications division and Gojinka Restaurant.
Hitachi's telecommunications headquarters factory is located outside
of Yokohama, where most of the managers staffing Hitachi's Dorav-
ille, Georgia, facility are from. Many of the managers had frequented
a Yokohama restaurant called Gojinka before being assigned to the
Atlanta post. Often when back at headquarters on business, these
managers would go to Gojinka after work and relate their experi-
ences of life in Atlanta. Apparently the suggestion was made that
Gojinka's owner should also move to Atlanta and set up shop there.
After repeated urgings, the owner began to take the idea seriously.
When he learned that an existing Japanese restaurant in Atlanta was
looking for a chef, he applied for the job and was hired.

Selling his restaurant in Yokohama, the chef and his wife moved to
Atlanta and spent their first several years in Georgia working for what
was then called Ginza Benkay Restaurant (now Benihana). When
Ginza Benkay closed down, the chef took his savings, invested in a

146

location off of Buford Highway, and opened up a new Gojinka Res-
taurant. Needless to say, the Japanese employees of Hitachi's Dorav-
llle facility are now regular customers.

Georgia's growing relationship with Japan is also reflected in the
jevelopment of a number of organizations and programs devoted to
ncreasing the opportunities for exchange on business, cultural and
educational levels. In the Spring of 1 975, a group of about ten senior
executives of large Japanese corporations visited Atlanta, and in
conversation with then-Governor George Busbee and various busi-
nessmen, became convinced of a growing potential for business
exchange between Japan and Southeast. The outgrowth of these
conversations was the establishment in December 1975 of the Ja-
oan/U.S. Southeast Association, comprised of seven member states
(Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennes-
see, and Virginia) and Japanese firms doing business in the South-
east. The State of Georgia hosted the first meeting in Atlanta in 1 976.
Subsequent annual meetings have rotated among the seven mem-
oer states during the even years, while the Japanese side hosts the
odd numbered year. There are other organizations of this kind in the
United States, but as of 1990 the Japan/U.S. Southeast Association
is by far the most active.

On a social and cultural level, the Japan-American Society of
Georgia, established in 1980, has played an increasingly active part
in promoting understanding of Japan in Georgia as well as providing
a venue for Japanese living in Georgia to associate with Georgians
interested in Japan. (See Professor Waldner's article in this volume
on the history of the Japan-America Society).

Besides these organizations, there are a number of civic and
educational programs designed to foster exchange. In 1966 the
Prefecture of Kagoshima, located in the southernmost region of
Japan, decided it wanted a sister state. After some study, prefectural
officials decided that Georgia was a good match because of the
shared traits of mild climate, a citizenry that believe in traditional
hospitality, a distinct southern accent, and defeat in a civil war. Based
on their recommendation, Katsushi Terazono, then Governor of
Kagoshima, approached then-Georgia Governor Carl Sanders, who
agreed that a sister state relationship would be mutually beneficial,
and an agreement was signed by both governors in a ceremony at

147

the Georgia State Capitol in 1966. "Kagoshima Corner" of Georgia's
State Capital was devoted to exhibits from Kagoshima Prefecture.

Exchange of people between Kagoshima and Georgia since that
time has been quite active, with a group of Kagoshima high school
students visiting Athens every summer and an ongoing faculty ex-
change program between the University of Georgia and Kagoshima
University. In 1981 a large group of Georgia government and busi-
ness leaders, led by former Governors George Busbee and Sanders,
visited Kagoshima to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the
sister state relationship. The University System of Georgia has sent a
group of college students to Kagoshima for a summer of foreign
study. In September 1 982, outgoing Governor George Busbee and a
small delegation paid a "farewell" visit to Kagoshima and other parts
of Japan important in Georgia's foreign trade.

Georgia also has an active sister city program with Japan. As of
1 990 four relationships exist, and in each case a Japanese or Ameri-
can firm has played a vital role in forging the link: YKK linking Macon
and Kurobe; American Family Life joining Columbus and Kiryu;
Nippon Oil connecting LaGrange with Aso City; and TEC uniting
Gainesville with Ohito City.

YKK initiated the first sister city relationship, between Macon, the
site of its United States city, and Kurobe, its headquarters on the
coast of the Japan Sea. Groups of official and unofficial visitors have
been visiting back and forth on a regular basis since the beginning of
the relationship and recently YKK announced plans to implement a
scholarship program that would fully subsidize a year of study in a
Japanese university for students in Macon-area colleges.

Columbus is a sister city of Kiryu, a community north of Tokyo. This
relationship was the result of Kiruy officials going to the major bank in
the area to ask for suggestions on possible candidate cities in
America. The bank, in turn, requested help from American Family
Life, which was one of their clients, in recommending a place, and the
result was the development of a sister city agreement with Colum-
bus.

In the case of LaGrange and Aso City, which is located on the
same island as Kagoshima Prefecture, the go-between was Nippon
Oil Seal, Inc., which has factories in both cities. And the most recent
sister city relationship, between Gainesville and Ohito City, was an

148

outgrowth of discussions between Georgia state officials and TEC
America, which has a large manufacturing plant in Ohito as well as a
sales and service center in Georgia. In 1983 the two cities inaugu-
rated a three-month homestay program for students.

Educational exchange programs are not just limited to those men-
tioned above. In 1982 Georgia State University began including a
one-week study tour of Tokyo area businesses as part of its Execu-
tive MBA Program. As of 1990 various types of exchange programs
are now being considered by a number of organizations, so the
chances for Georgians to learn more about Japan, and vice versa,
will increase.

The relationship between Georgia and Japan is still young, and the
future points towards continued strong and positive growth. The
danger exists, however, that the relationship will become too uneven.
As of 1 990 some one hundred Japanese companies have operations
in Georgia while only four Georgia companies are represented in
Japan. Japan represents a substantial marketplace. Admittedly, the
Japanese market is not an easy one to penetrate, but for those
Georgia companies truly committed to maintaining a competitive
edge in the world marketplace, selling in Japan is increasingly attrac-
tive.

The potential also exists for an imbalance to develop on a cultural
and educational level. Though no accurate figures are available, a
safe guess is there are more than one thousand Japanese students
studying in Georgia schools and universities. And if study and tour
groups are included, the flow of people from Japan to Georgia, is
considerable. By comparison, there are only a handful of Georgians
studying in Japan. If this is to be corrected, more opportunities must
be developed for Georgians to learn and travel to Japan.

Until these areas are addressed and properly remedied, the Geor-
gia-Japan relationship remains in danger of being lopsided. Fortu-
nately, the many examples of increased interest in Japan and the
growing Japanese-related activity in the state are positive signs that
an appropriate equilibrium can and will be achieved.

149

The Georgia-Japan Relationship:

A Comparison of Japanese Investment in

Massachusetts and in Georgia

GEORGE M. EANCASTER*

The following article is by a layman, not a scholar. The opinions are
mine, gathered from experience in the trade and international devel-
opment offices of the State of Georgia and the Commonwealth oi
Massachusetts. I hope my ideas will initiate further research anc
exploration.

The presence of Japan in Georgia has intrigued me for years
Georgia has attracted close to 200 Japanese companies over the
last twenty years, creating a strong infrastructure for future growth
Scholars and experts attribute the success to low cost of living anc
transportation, non-union labor, quality of life, and Southern hospital-
ity. The evidence suggests, however, a more fundamental factoi
based on the history and development of industrial manufacturing ir
the United States.

In studying the history of industrial development in the Unitec
States, one observes different regional rates of development anc
inherent strengths and weaknesses resulting from the different rates
The length of a region's industrial involvement has an effect or
worker relations, economics, politics, and culture. If we compare
Massachusetts and Georgia, we can see how varying rates of indus-

*George Lancaster is Director of International Sales for INFORUM/Atlanta, a division of The
Portman Companies. He has worked for the State of Georgia Department of Industry anc
Trade and has been Program Director for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office o
International Trade. Mr. Lancaster was born, raised, and educated in Japan and holds a
Bachelor of Arts degree in Japanese studies from Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.

150

rial development impacted a state's ability to create a sound interna-
ional investment policy, primarily in regard to Japan.

United States industry began in the Northeast corridor. Massachu-
;etts, the regional power, began manufacturing firearms as early as
he late eighteenth century. The manufacturing process required
sophisticated forging techniques and the skilled use of crude ma-
chine tools.

Another feature of the Massachusetts region was its textile indus-
ry, with the cities of Lowell, Fall River, Taunton and Lawrence
iominated by sprawling mills. As the textile industry modernized over
ime, the machines and processes required more sophistication, both
n development and maintenance. A strong infrastructure developed
>eneath Massachusetts' burgeoning industrial might.

The advent of heavy manufacturing in Massachusetts, as opposed
o firearms and textiles, began with the shipping and shipbuilding
rade. As far back as the eighteenth century sleek, swift clipper ships
)lied the waters between Massachusetts, Europe, and Asia. Ship-
fards in the port cities of Boston, Salem, Quincy, and New Bedford
ittracted thousands of skilled and unskilled laborers.

The shipbuilding industry so dominated these cities that subse-
juent industry developed only to serve one industry. Even today
nuch pride arises from the seafaring history of the region and forms
nuch of the basis for regional identity.

On the other hand, there were negative aspects of the region's
ndustrial development. Progress is rarely a smooth and effortless
)rocess. In Massachusetts the mills were frightful places to work for
nen, women, and children. Work was never lacking, and the hours
stretched to twelve and fourteen a day in dim, dust-filled factories.

The workers' lives were controlled entirely by their employers,
similar to the Chicago meat-packing industry depicted by Upton
Sinclair. It took horrible disasters such as the raging fire that engulfed
i multistory mill in Lowell, killing hundreds of women and children,
)efore a workers' rights movement gained momentum in Massachu-
setts.

From the Massachusetts employers' viewpoint, the worker was
lever more than a means to an end. At the turn of the century violent
hashes erupted between employers and workers, with crippling
strikes. As popular uprisings grew in number and magnitude, the

151

workforce became more organized and powerful. Unions developed,
and suddenly the worker had the support and alliance of others in the
same industry and not just in one factory.

The unions and solidarity of inter-company laborers created a
formidable negotiating force. Slowly control was wrested away from
the owners. As a result, laws governing minimum wages, child labor,
compulsory school attendance, and workmen's compensation were
enacted to protect both child and adult workers. The viciousness and
horror of the earlier period were not easily forgotten. As the twentieth
century unfolded, unions and manufacturers stood in extreme polar-
ity, remaining mutually suspicious and antagonistic.

Rather than meet the rising demands of the now-powerful unions
for higher wages and better working conditions, manufacturers exer-
cised one remaining option: They moved, and more often than not, to
the South.

The post-Civil War South, continuing an antebellum trend, was
gripped in a subservient economic role to the North. Raw materials
exhumed from the ground and grown on the fields of the South fed
the Northern engines. Over time great disparity in wealth emerged
between the two regions. The effects are still evident today in terms
of per capita income, educational performance, and cultural ameni-
ties.

Low wages and even lower expections created an excellent envi-
ronment for incoming industries in the South. The trickle turned to a
flood as more mills and machine shops discovered a pliant work
force suspicious of unionism and its violent birth. Many a small
Southern town could not thwart the power of manufacturers and in
the end owed its existence to one industry.

Fortunately, industry had learned a lesson from its troubled North-
ern past. This attitude, coupled with protective labor laws, created
conditions in Southern factories and mills much less barbaric and
inhumane than what had exited in mid-nineteenth century Massa-
chusetts factories.

It took a national emergency to finally lift the South out of its vassal
existence and into self-sufficiency. The sudden need for national
manufacturing power during World War II marked a turning point for
Georgia and surrounding Southeastern states. Lockheed spearheaded
the drive by building a massive aircraft factory in Marietta. The

152

venture was considered an extreme risk because of its large scale
and its reliance on hundreds of unskilled and untested Southern
laborers.

The risk turned out to be unfounded as thousands of inexperienced
out willing laborers descended from the Appalachians and emerged
out of the Piedmont to man the production lines. Smaller automobile
olants in Atlanta geared up for the manufacturing of transport
vehicles and in the process increased the scale of factory and work
force. The workers came into the factories from the woods, mines,
and farms, proving to the nation that the South could produce a
capable and efficient laborer. The industrialization of the South was
under way in a process qualitatively different from what had occurred
over the previous century in the North.

The South benefitted from welcoming industrialists "enlightened"
oy many labor battles on Northern soil. Although unions followed the
large manufacturing concerns into the South, workers were reluctant
to join them.

Smaller industries opened factories without unions, and though
wages were low and benefits slim, workers proved to be more
interested in earning a steady living at less than optimum conditions
than in facing the vagaries and hardship of farming and mining.
Unions never made any headway beyond the large national manu-
facturing companies, and to this day, the South overall has the lowest
union participation of any region in the country.

After World War II, the movement of industry congregated in
specific regions in the South. Steel and heavy industry went to
Alabama and its port cities. Textiles and carpets centered on the
Carolinas and Georgia.

The movement decimated the economies of parts of the Northeast.
Massachusetts was especially hard hit. The traditional textile for-
tresses of Lawrence, Fall River, Lowell, and Taunton soon resembled
ghost towns as no new industry stepped in to fill the void. The
machine tool industry, so strong in Springfield and Worcester, began
to decline rapidly as factories disappeared. As no new industries
emerged, workers either followed the jobs south or relied on the
government for assistance. Once-proud and defiant laborers were
now helpless and angry.

The differing historical development of industry between the North

153

and South had far reaching repercussions on the economic, political,
and social landscape of both regions. The wrenching conflict attend-
ing the North's birth of industrial unions never threatened the South.
For the Southerner, industrialization triumphed over poverty and oc-
cupational uncertainty and replaced lost pride in the aftermath of the
Civil War. Industry helped the South gain confidence and strength,
and such positive effects carry on today.

Political relations between industry and government have suffered
mightily in the North because of taxes and pollution. Pollution con-
trols being nonexistent in the early stages of the industrial revolution,
much of Massachusetts felt the adverse effects first. The Common-
wealth became one of the first states to represent the worker against
industry in advocating pollution-free manufacturing environments.
Adding insult to injury, as industries left, those remaining faced a
heavier tax burden to both cover the lost revenue and help the
government feed and clothe its unemployed.

In Massachusetts, taxes and pollution remain such volatile issues
today that strict controls of industrial waste and business tax hikes
can have disatrous results for an elected official. Governor Michael
Dukakis was defeated resoundingly in 1 978 in a second term election
bid due to his policy favoring increased taxes upon industry.

In Georgia, on the other hand, the relationship between govern-
ment and industry is almost cozy, having experienced only the
positive effects of industrialization. By the time industrial processes
moved here, their pollution controls were in place. Textiles and
carpet manufacturing did not produce devastating pollution. Paper
mills in south Georgia are great polluters, but they are distant enough
from major population centers to elicit little popular protest. Thus
government never had to step in as the regulator of industry.

Moreover, taxation has hardly been an issue between government
and industry in Georgia due to the continued growth of industry and
population. Analyses of the 1980 United States Census indicate that
by the year 2030 Massachusetts' population will have grown barely
4% while Georgia is pegged at 45%. This is reassurance of future
taxpaying and a stable tax policy. In fact, Georgia has not changed its
corporate tax rate for some forty years.

Economic effects are more difficult to qualify. Massachusetts in
1 989 enjoyed one of the lowest unemployment figures in the country,

154

at 3% compared to a 5% figure in Georgia. The service industry is
larger in Massachusetts than Georgia and seems well poised for the
next industrial wave.

Questions remain, however, as to the ability of the service industry
to replace manufacturing in terms of wage levels, benefits, and job
security. And, as in the textile age, the dominance of one industry in a
'egion may be disastrous once the industry falters. A case in point is
[he town of Lowell which, empty of textile firms, became the home of
i/Vang computers. The computer crash in 1985 devastated Lowell
Dnce again as Wang was forced to lay off hundreds of employees,
:housands by 1989.

Others question the real cause of the Massachusetts resurgence.
VI assachu setts' economic preeminence closely parallels President
Reagan's tenure and his Strategic Defense Initiative. Massachusetts
nstitute of Technology (MIT) defense contracting and its vast sup-
Dort infrastructure have been major components of the economic rise
Df Massachusetts.

Be that as it may, the economic success achieved through local
afforts, coupled with government-industry antagonism over taxes
and pollution and the social effects of industrial upheaval, create an
anvironment adverse to international investment in Massachusetts.
Dne more factor needs to be explored before a clear picture emerges
as to why the number of Japanese manufacturers are so small in
:omparison to Georgia.

The last factor, the one perhaps with the biggest downside for
Japan, is the perceived loss of competitiveness of Massachusetts'
ndustry in Japan. The once-proud shipping industry all but disap-
Deared in the face of first Japanese and now Korean manufacturing
night. The great Quincy shipyard built its last Navy ship in 1986. The
site has been scheduled for conversion to waterfront housing. Mas-
sachusetts' machine tool industry was ravaged by the disappearance
Df the heavy industry it once served. Also decimated by low priced
and highly automated machine tools made in Japan, the Massachu-
setts machine tool industry is all but dead. The shoe industry was
billed off by cheap Korean, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese labor. The
textile industry, after first losing ground to the South, was additionally
debilitated by cheap Asian imports. It is always easier to justify a loss
Df competitiveness using external evils of protectionism, low wages,

155

and high-dollar than internal causes leading to deterioration.

Today, Japan is seen as a threat to Massachusetts' emerging
technologies. The concentration of universities in Massachusetts
spurs on cutting-edge research and manufacturing. Fiberoptics;
photovoltaics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and superconduc-
tivity are seen as new battle grounds between the United States anc
Japan. Massachusetts is a leader for the United States.

Since Japan has been the most visible and successful competitor
there is a reluctance to welcome Japan to Massachusetts. The irony
is that Massachusetts universities are crowded with Japanese re-
searchers, both from industrial and educational facilities. MIT ever
has an Industrial Liaison Program whereby interested firms gair
access to all its research by donating substantial sums. Most majoi
Japanese firms are members. Even so, few researchers have the
clout to sway a company's location decision for a manufacturing site
in the United States. One exception is the Nippon Electric Corpora-
tion (NEC) plant in Boxborough, Massachusetts, located there be-
cause the present NEC president wanted to repay the debt he owec
for the education he received at MIT many years ago. Moreover, ir
Massachusetts as elsewhere in the United States, there is both
popular and official xenophobia regarding the Japanese.

All the conditions described above union strife, tax and regula-
tory instability, and xenophobia are deterrents to an incoming for-
eign manufacturer. The United States market is difficult enough foi
American companies. Thus, foreign companies must reduce control-
lable risks to compete effectively.

The risk reduction process can be seen in the manufacturing
investment strategies of the Japanese. Although 80% of Americans
live east of the Mississippi, most Japanese firms first establishec
plants in California. Proximity to the homeland and existing communi-
ties of Japanese ancestry reduced perceived risks. Only after gaining
experience and confidence in California did Japanese firms begin tc
venture into other regions.

Georgia benefitted from the lessons of others. The manner in
which Japanese firms established a presence in Georgia prevented
antagonism against Japanese investment from developing in Geor-
gia.

Acutely mindful of its foreign status, Japan, from day one, took a

156

cooperative stance in Georgia. Just as the Southern textile industry
began to suffer the full effect of cheap foreign imports in the late
1960s, Japanese companies arrived to buy out dying firms and
create new ones. Japanese firms beneficially stepped in to fill a void
left by bankrupt United States companies, timing themselves so that
little disruption occurred. In effect, company ownership was less a
concern for Georgians than the availability of good jobs.

In some small Georgia and Carolina towns the biggest employer
was Japanese. The firms were seen as a godsend, not a plague. The
perception of Japan as rescuer began in the textile industry and laid a
fertile ground for future Japanese investment in a variety of indus-
tries.

The historical circumstances of American industrial development
helped create a welcome environment for Japanese investment in
Georgia. Japan's timing and expertise ensured its growth and expan-
sion. One has only to read about "the next Japanese plant location"
to realize Japan is a full partner in Georgia's manufacturing commu-
nity. Contrast this with NEC in Massachusetts, where months of
negotiating were necessary to appease suspicious townspeople, and
the company arrived as quietly as a thief in the night. Even today, few
outside Boxborough know NEC has for ten years been building
computers just west of Boston.

I think the historical differences between Massachusetts' and
Georgia's industrial development will be of great importance in the
years ahead as more companies establish roots around the world
and in the process lose their outward national identities. The future of
Japanese investment looks bright for Georgia and surrounding states.
Interstate competition to woo the Japanese is intense. Yet Georgia
continues to win an inordinately large number of firms, third behind
California and Illinois. As proximity to Japan is no longer a factor,
California's popularity has waned over the years. The actual number
gap between Japanese plants in Georgia and Illinois can be counted
on the fingers of one hand.

If current trends continue, Georgia has the potential of hosting the
largest number of Japanese companies in the nation. But inherent
weaknesses in the Georgian economy due to the short history of
industrialization could undermine this development. The absense of
suppliers and services for the manufacturing industry must be ad-

157

dressed. Many Japanese manufacturers get components and pre-
fabrication from distant points in the Midwest and North, wreaking
havoc on their just-in-time-inventory systems. Industrial development
authorities need to establish clearly defined, coordinated programs
to attract these industries or there will be no support for existing and
incoming manufacturers.

Employee training costs in Georgia are high in comparison with
industrialized states equipped with workers trained over generations.
Although it is not mentioned by the state development agencies in
their promotional literature, Japanese firms usually spend more than
originally budgeted for training once they set up in Georgia. The best
remedy is education. The State of Georgia's Quality Basic Education
program, while a good start, must be improved and expanded and
become the priority program passed from one administration to the
next. An educated work force is easier to train than an uneducated
one, thus saving costs and time for industry.

Georgia must improve its infrastructure. Time will inevitably erase
the lingering negative effects of industrial history that still hamper
international development in Massachusetts. Content and successful
today, Georgia could one day discover its glory days of welcoming
Japanese investment are in the past.

158

The Georgia-Republic of Korea (ROK)
Connection: Into the Twenty-first Century

GERDEEN DYER'

In September 1 988, Seoul, capital of the Republic of Korea (ROK),
lecame the first city on the Asian mainland east of the Urals to host
le Olympic Games. The XXIV Olympiad was one of the largest,
lest-attended sports spectacles in history. Dignitaries from the ROK's
Dngtime enemies as well as its old allies were on hand for the
sstivities. One of the guest delegations was from Atlanta, a city
>usily promoting its own Olympic hopes. The Georgia capital recently
lad been chosen as the United States candidate for the 1 996 Games,
ind Mayor Andrew Young was in Seoul to present his case to
)lympic officials. Assisting him in the lobbying effort was Korean-
iorn Atlanta banker Joon H. Song, head of Georgia's Olympic Sup-
>ort Committee. Another Georgian who came to observe the Olym-
)ics was Chang Bin Yim, a Korean-born textile executive from Dal-
on. As a member of the Southeast United States-Korea Economic
Council, he was also interested in attracting more investment from
lis native country to his adopted state.

In 1 990 the mission of attracting the Olympics to Atlanta still seems
in extraordinary long shot, while the effort to boost trade between the
10K and Georgia is being pursued with high expectations. But in
)oth campaigns, as they did in Seoul in September 1988, Koreans in

Mr. Dyer, a journalism graduate of Georgia State University, served three tours of duty with
ie United States Army in the Republic of Korea, where he acted as liaison between the Greek
Mhodox Chuch of Korea and United States servicemen. Mr. Dyer has been employed by The
\tlanta Journal-Constitution since 1984. He authored "Will Atlanta Become the Seoul of the
>outh?" in the May 22, 1 988, Journal-Constitution. He also wrote a guide to Georgia for South
Koreans published by Hankook llbo of Seoul.

159

Georgia play prominent roles, establishing themselves as key play-
ers in the state's future. The Korean presence in Georgia is all the
more impressive for having emerged in a single generation. Esti-
mates of its precise size vary because of the continued high growth
rate. The Directory of the Korean Association of Atlanta estimates
that there are 15,000 Koreans in Atlanta and 30,000 in Georgia,
making them the largest group of Asians in the state. Joon H. Song,
of C & S Bank, and Kyu Chul Lee, of Korean American Broadcasting,
Inc., estimate 30,000 Koreans in Atlanta and 50,000 in Georgia.

Georgia's Koreans are well organized, despite the fact that they
have not tended to cluster in specific neighborhoods. Among the five
Asian populations Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Koreans and Viet-
namese that operate ethnic associations in Atlanta, the Koreans
have by far the widest range of services and programs. They support
about 30 churches in the Atlanta area alone, more than the combined
total of other ethnic congregations in the entire state. A Korean-
American Chamber of Commerce, active in Atlanta since 1975, esti-
mates that there are 700 Korean-owned businesses in Georgia, most
of them family firms in the service sector.

International commerce is another matter. While the ROK is fre-
quently likened to Japan as an emerging economic power and formi-
dable United States trading partner, its potential for growth in Geor-
gia remains to be seen. Georgia's International Facilities Register,
which lists foreign businesses operating in the state, shows 206
Japan-based enterprises and only four based in the ROK. In 1986,
the ROK ranked 33rd among nations that import Georgia products.1

If large-scale international trade seems to lag badly behind immi-
gration, this can be explained in purely linear terms. South Korea was
an exporter of people well before it was capable of significant interna-
tional commerce. But if its economic presence in Georgia expands as
rapidly as has the state's Korean population, the next two decades
will see soaring trade relations.

Background of the Korean Presence in Georgia

Most Asian populations in the United States have grown dramati-
cally in recent years, but this is particularly true of Koreans. As
recently as 1940, when the former Asian kingdom was in the final
years of Japanese domination, the total number of Koreans in this

160

country was 8,562, eighty percent of whom were residents of Ha-
waii.2

Many Koreans had a keen awareness of, and admiration for,
America during the Japanese colonial period, and large numbers
adopted the faith of American Christian missionaries. This interest,
however, was rarely reciprocated in the United States, even in official
circles. Schoolbooks mentioned Korea as a province of Japan, and
some government records failed to distinguish between Koreans and
Japanese.

The military experiences of two prominent Korean-Americans illus-
trate how little understanding there was of their ethnic group as late
as the 1940s. Young Oak Kim of Los Angeles, now a retired United
States Army colonel and a highly decorated hero of two wars, began
his military career in World War II by being drafted into a unit set
aside for Japanese-Americans. Susan Ahn, who in 1 942 became the
first Asian woman to join the United States Navy, initially was refused
enlistment because of confusion over her ethnic status. Navy recruit-
ers "did not know what a Korean was."3

The Korean War of 1950-1953 raised American awareness about
the existence of Koreans and left the government in Seoul facing
enormous population problems. The ROK government controlled
slightly less than half the land on the Korean peninsula, but an influx
of refugees had left it with about eighty percent of the peninsula's
people. The economy had been shattered by years of colonialism
and war, and the country was dependent on United States aid.

Under these circumstances, the ROK encouraged emigration,
especially to the United States, while discouraging any outflow of its
meager capital. But United States immigration laws were not accom-
modating. Anti-Asian admission quotas and the realities of military
occupation shaped Korean immigration into a peculiar pattern. Most
newcomers to the United States from the ROK were either war brides
or war orphans. They were absorbed into American families as
individuals and rarely established contact with one another. Between
1960 and 1965, 12,000 of the 13,000 Koreans entering the United
States were the wives or children of United States servicemen.4

United States immigration reform, approved in 1965 and imple-
mented in 1968, increased the volume and altered the character of
the Korean influx. In Georgia, where military communities previously

161

were the centers of a limited Korean population, Atlanta began to
develop a recognizable Korean community in the late 1960s.

As late as 1962, there were only three Korean families living in the
Atlanta area, in addition to a few students, military brides and adop-
tees.5 The first recorded gathering of Koreans in Atlanta took place in
1 964, when five students began a regular Christian prayer meeting at
Emory University. This meeting has sometimes been described as
the ancestor of the city's Korean Association.6

By 1972, Atlanta was considered sufficiently important for the
opening of a ROK consulate. The diplomatic mission established the
Georgia capital as the Seoul government's contact point for the
Southeast, and it continues to serve the entire area east of Texas
and south of the Baltimore-Washington corridor. It also made Atlanta
the Korean media center for the region. Three Seoul-based Korean-
language publications opened bureaus in Atlanta: Hankook llbo in
1976, the Joong-Ang Daily News in 1976, and Chosun llbo in 1978.
The Korean-language Korean Journal (Georgia Edition), a weekly
free-ad paper, commenced publication in Atlanta in 1987. It is affili-
ated with similar Korean-language papers in Chicago and Los Ange-
les. The Sae Gae Times, a New York-based Korean-language daily
newspaper that concentrates on world and national news, opened a
Georgia bureau in 1983.

In the early 1970s, the authoritarian government of President Park
Chung-hee began to sense the political potential of overseas Kore-
ans, almost all of whom owed at least formal allegiance to the ROK in
Seoul instead of to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK) in the North. In several of his speeches in 1973, Park
criticized his countrymen abroad who allegedly had tried to pass as
Japanese or Chinese, and he called for an "I am Korean" philosophy.
He directed his government to assist the promotion of traditional
culture and loyalty to the homeland among emigrants.

Some of Park's efforts led to controversy, as in the "Koreagate"
scandal of the mid-1970s, when his agents allegedly tried to exert
illegal influence on United States policy through Korean-Americans.
But most aspects of this campaign were more benign, including the
distribution of flags and patriotic literature and the worldwide promo-
tion of the national sport of taekwondo, the teaching of which in-
cludes the veneration of traditional Korean symbols. The campaign

162

also fostered the formation of Korea Societies and Korean Associa-
tions.

The Korean Association of Atlanta was organized in 1974. Over
the years it has become an umbrella group for a host of other Korean
organizations and a clearinghouse for information about them. The
most important of these organizations are the Korean-American
Chamber of Commerce and the Korean Grocers Association.

In Georgia's urban areas, as elsewhere in the United States,
Koreans have become known as the new wave of immigrant shop-
keepers. They own hundreds of small, family-run businesses such as
restaurants, neighborhood groceries, laundries, and motels. Their
seemingly sudden infiltration into this sector has generated some
suspicions about the source of their financing.

Gyehs, or informal credit unions, have been an essential though
little-publicized factor in the development of this business structure.
Gyehs are formed, often under the auspices of churches, by groups
of families that pool cash resources. Each month the cash pool is lent
to a member family, generally interest-free and with no restrictions on
use.

Since the gyeh system is built totally on trust, members have no
legal recourse if their trust is abused. Participants are disinclined to
talk about specific instances, but some gyehs have failed in the
Atlanta area, sending ripples of financial hardship through segments
of the community.

Georgia's Korean population entered its greatest period of growth
during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, when the state
became well-known around the world. Since then, the Korean Cham-
ber of Commerce and individual businessmen have sought to attract
Koreans to Georgia from other parts of the United States, especially
Southern California and the New York area.

Future Immigration Prospects

The ROK has worked successfully in the past two decades to curb
its population growth, but it still forecasts a population for the year
2000 of 49.2 million in a country about the size of Indiana.7 Immigra-
tion to the United States will continue to be encouraged, and an
increasing number of immigrants will find their way to the Southeast.
The Atlanta area has the potential to become "another Los Angeles,"

163

which has 250,000 Koreans, at some point in the future. This predic-
tion seems improbable in the near future, but even conservative
estimates are that Georgia's Korean population will double by 1993.

The Korean organizational structure in the state will have to face
this influx, and it has shown signs in the late 1 980s of a new maturity.
Atlanta's Korean Association "democratized" in 1987, electing a
president by secret ballot after a formal campaign by three prominent
leaders. Dr. Soo-wong Ahn, who has been in the city since 1 964, was
elected. Dr. Ahn is a physician and his selection may signal a
lessening of influence by the merchant sector in Korean affairs.

Another recent significant event was a party in Marietta on August
8, 1988, inaugurating the United Korean Federal Credit Union, the
first chartered Korean credit union in the Southeast. The party was
attended by prominent Koreans from throughout Georgia and was
given wide coverage in the Korean-language Joong-Ang Daily News,
Hankook llbo, Chosun llbo, Sae Gae Times, and Korean Journal.
This was unusually thorough attention for what was essentially a
private event. Whatever the success of this particular financial ven-
ture, it is clearly a sign that the gyeh system is in decline and that
Korean ownership of small businesses may not spread so rapidly as
it has in the past decade.

Korean churches continue to wield strong influence among first-
generation Korean immigrants, but even the clergy fear that this will
decline among those born or raised in this country whose primary
language is English. In 1980 a Korean school was begun at Atlanta's
Baptist Tabernacle primarily to keep knowledge of the language
alive. But enrollment has remained at about 100, suggesting that
Korean language instruction, if any, is carried on at home.

The political influence of Koreans in Georgia remains minimal,
mainly because many first-generation immigrants are still not citi-
zens. An example of the community's relative weakness is its inability
thus far to persuade the state government to allow the use of the
Korean language on drivers' license tests. But the importance of
South Korean money, which has been fortified by the flow of black ink
into the ROK in the 1980s, is still to be felt in Georgia.

The Slow Rise in Trade

Korean Air Lines has had a sales office in Atlanta since 1974,

164

making it the longest-established Korean company in Georgia. But
the airline still does not fly into the Southeast's aviation hub, a sign of
the long-stalled penetration of Southeastern markets by Korean
companies. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines initiated direct service to
Seoul in 1986, an event that attracted regionwide attention to the
ROK's emerging importance. Since 1986 the Republic of Korea flag
has flown at Hartsfield International Airport alongside the flags of
other nations with direct air service to and from Atlanta.

Young Kang, a businessman and former director of Atlanta's Ko-
rean Association, approached Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson in
1981 with a proposal that Atlanta acquire a sister city in the ROK.
Kang's choice was Taegu, the country's third-largest city. Taegu, as
he pointed out to the mayor, was a southeastern metropolis, a
provincial capital, and roughly equal in population to Atlanta. It was
also his own hometown.

Jackson liked the proposal, and before year's end he had visited
Taegu and signed the necessary documents of friendship. The fol-
lowing year, Taegu's mayor paid a reciprocal visit to Georgia and
received an honorary doctorate from Atlanta University.

The sister cities program is basically geared toward understanding
between cultures, and much of the Taegu-Atlanta relationship has
involved student exchanges and tourist visits. But Kang, who has
since become vice chairman of Atlanta's sister cities committee, saw
the program from the first as a vehicle for increasing commercial ties
between Georgia and his native country.

This attitude has been shared by Atlanta's current mayor, Andrew
Young, who succeeded Jackson in 1982. In keeping with his experi-
ence as a United Nations ambassador and his determinedly interna-
tionalist outlook, Young has maintained quasi-diplomatic contacts
with foreign leaders and travelled widely to promote Atlanta as a
business center. He made his first trip to Taegu in 1982 and has
overseen reciprocal visits of administrative and public safety officials
of the two cities.

Joe Frank Harris, who became Georgia's governor in 1983, has
complemented Young's initiatives with his own vigorous courtship of
Korean business. He has visited the ROK three times as part of East
Asia trade missions and in 1985 was the first governor in the United
States to announce plans to open a state trade office in Seoul.

165

Georgia's endeavors have brought mixed results. Despite the
state's lead in making its intentions known, it was second to Alabama
in actually putting its Seoul office into operation. Direct investment
from the ROK has remained low, and as of late 1 988 none of it was in
manufacturing. A small, ROK government-affiliated Korea Trade
Center, which opened in Georgia in the late 1970s, quietly sus-
pended activities in October 1987. In addition, United States pres-
sure on the ROK to allow in more United States agricultural imports is
being met by stiff resistance in the South Korean countryside.

Two bright spots in this picture have been Hanjin Container Lines
Ltd. and Hyundai Motor Company, both of which established Atlanta-
area offices in the 1980s and use Georgia port facilities for their
Southeastern imports. Hyundai's opening of a regional sales office in
Lithia Springs in late 1985 was particularly welcome because it was
in an area on the west side of Atlanta that the state targeted for
development.

The Southeast United States-Korea Economic Council, founded in
1985 to promote trade between South Korea and seven Southeast-
ern states, alternates its annual meetings between Seoul and various
Southeastern cities. Its members from Georgia include Joon H.
Song, Chang Bin Yim, and SDI International's Edward I.S. Kil. The
Southeastern member states are likely to be competing against one
another for Korean business. An ROK government study released in
May 1988 rated the 10 best states for direct investment. Nine were
either Southern or border states, with Florida placing first and Geor-
gia fifth.8

The ROK government, after concentrating much of its energies in
the 1980s on staging a successful Olympiad, is now pushing its
business sector to invest abroad. The nation recorded its first-ever
trade surplus in 1 986 and the figure has been climbing steadily since.
Government planners want to take advantage of the won's apprecia-
tion against the dollar and provide a hedge against growing protec-
tionist sentiment in the United States. To that end, longstanding re-
strictions on the flow of capital out of the country have been eased.
As of January 1988, it is legal to carry as much as $1 ,000,000 out of
the ROK, up from a previous ceiling of $40,000.

The ROK government's direct influence on industry has weakened
since opposition parties gained control of the National Assembly in

166

the spring of 1988. Patrick A. Travisano, of International Business
Networks, Inc., visited Seoul twice during 1988 to campaign for more
ROK trade with Georgia and reported that government officials seemed
more receptive than business leaders to his efforts. He found ROK
companies eager to gain a niche in United States markets but fearful
of the economic risks involved.

Korean business leaders in Georgia see Atlanta's Olympic candi-
dacy as a unique opportunity for the state to outdistance its regional
rivals and win over reluctant Asian investors. When the host for the
1996 Games will be chosen in the autumn of 1990, local Koreans
with ties to the International Olympic Committee will again be making
contacts on behalf of the city.

Young Kang, citing the importance of the Taegu region in ROK
politics since 1948, predicts that Atlanta's sister city will swing the
Seoul government away from its support of Athens, Greece, and
behind the Olympic bid from Atlanta. He may overestimate the
current influence of Taegu in ROK politics and of the ROK in Olympic
circles, but the selection process has been full of surprises in the
past. Choosing Seoul was one of them.

The outlook for Georgia-Korean trade is colored by extremes. If
Atlanta succeeds in attracting the Olympics, its attractiveness to
Korean investment should rise enormously, with firms that helped
rebuild the face of Seoul vying for contracts along Peachtree Street.

On the other hand, no major economic power is more vulnerable to
war than the ROK. The Korea Development Institute predicts a
continued easing of tension on the peninsula, but with the threat of
hostilities persisting past the year 2000. So long as the DPRK
remains unpredictable, Seoul is in an exposed position near the
border, and even a limited military conflict could reverse years of
progress in the ROK.

If events unfold at a more measured pace, Georgia can expect to
find itself competing heavily with Florida, which has impressed ROK
analysts with its dynamic growth. Opening a ROK consulate in
Miami, discussed and abandoned in previous years, is under serious
consideration again.

Koreans in Georgia, however, take an unruffled view of the chal-
lenge from the Sunshine State. Florida lacks hills, evergreens, and
identifiable winters, they say, things that appeal to Koreans both

167

private and corporate. When asked to sum up the Peach State's
appeal, two leaders of Atlanta's Korean community came up with an
identical sentence: "Georgia looks like Korea."9 In future decades,
they hope that will become truer than ever.

NOTES

I am grateful for the cooperation of many people, most of them Koreans living in
Georgia. Several are mentioned by name in this article, although none sought recognition. I
wish to thank particularly Mr. Edward I.S. Kil, who worked especially hard to assist me and
whose dreams for the future of Georgia and Korea are inspirational.

1 From statistics on file at the Georgia Department of Industry and Trade. Figures are for
1986, the last full year for which information is complete.

2 Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University
Press, 1980), p. 603. Korean section written by Hyung-Chan Kim.

3 Korea Newsreview, July 9, 1988, for the Kim account; June 11, 1988, for Ahn's story.

4 Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, p. 602.

5 Interview with Joon H. Song, February 1988.

6 Interview with Dr. Soo-wong Ahn, January 1988.

7 Korea Development Institute statistic cited in 2000 Days, Korea's Fifth Republic, (Seoul:
Korean Overseas Information Service, 1987), p. 66.

8 Business Korea (Seoul), May 1988, p. 43. ,

9 Interview with Joon H. Song, February 1988, and with Young Kang, August 1988.

168

Profiles of Civic

Organizations Involved

With Georgia-East Asian

Relations

169

Japan, Georgia, and the Japan- America

Society of Georgia (JASG):
The Viewpoint of Its Executive Director

GEORGE W. WAEDNER'

Japan and Georgia

Emperor Jimmu, the founder of the Japanese nation, is said to
have ascended the throne on February 1 1 , 606 B.C. General James
Edward Oglethorpe founded what is now the state of Georgia on
February 12, 1733. Allowing for the fact that the international date
line bisects the Pacific, it can be concluded that the estabishment of
Japan as a nation and the founding of Georgia are separated by two
days and two thousand three hundred and thirty-nine years.

One need not, however, go back much more than a century to find
the origins of diplomatic, cultural and commercial relations between
Japan and the United States. A still shorter time frame is required to
describe the beginnings of major and sustained contacts between
Japan and Georgia.

At the nation to nation level, Commodore Matthew C. Perry initi-
ated diplomatic contact with Japan in 1853 by demanding that the
Japanese end their policy of isolation from the outside world. The

*ln 1975 George Waldner received his Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University, where his
dissertation was on "Japanese Foreign Policy and Economic Growth: Ikeda Hayato's
Approach to Trade Liberalization." He became a member of the Board of Directors of the
Japan-America Society of Georgia in 1980 and served as the Society's first Executive
Director. Dr. Waldner has served as Provost of Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Georgia, and
in 1 987 became Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wilkes College, Wilkes-Barre, Penn-
sylvania. The original version of this article was published in the Japan-America Society of
Georgia Yearbook & Directory 1982and is reprinted with the permission of the Japan-America
Society of Georgia, Inc.

170

size of Perry's fleet and the insistence of his demands persuaded the
Japanese government that they had little alternative but to acqui-
esce, and so it was that Japan began its contacts with the United
States and the rest of the world in the modern era.

Contact with the United States catalyzed Japan's start on a course
of national development and economic growth that has continued
and gathered speed ever since. In the modernization of their public
and private institutions, the Japanese have on many occasions
looked to the American experience as a guide for their own growth
and tranformation. Some of the forces unleashed by the rapid pace of
change in Japanese society expressed themselves in a policy of
conquest, which brought the United States and Japan into mortal
combat and thus riveted the attention of millions of people in both
societies on the other.

After World War II, American officials of the Allied Occupation set
about the task of democratizing and otherwise reforming Japan's
economy, politics, and education system, usually with the willing
cooperation of their Japanese counterparts. In recent years, the two
countries have been political and military allies in Asia. Increasingly,
cultural influences have begun to flow in both directions. Many
Americans are now interested in uniquely Japanese styles of the
martial arts, tea ceremony, flower arranging and horticulture. People
to people interactions have grown with improved air travel between
Japan and America now accessible to millions. Most significantly, the
commercial and financial relationships between the two countries
have developed to the point at which Japan is now the largest
overseas trading partner of the United States.

Trade between the two countries in 1981 reached $64 billion in
value. The United States is the major foreign market for Japanese
motor vehicles and electronic products, while Japan is America's
best overseas customer. In 1981, the U.S. shipped nearly $22 billion
worth of goods to Japan-an amount almost equal to combined
American sales to the United Kingdom and West Germany.

The extent of United States-Japan trade has given rise to a steady
stream of people and goods flowing between the two countries and
has also generated some frictions, controversies, and problems of
adjustment.

It was not until the 1 960s and 1 970s that Georgia began to develop

171

as a major focal point of U.S. -Japan relations. Among a number of
"first causes" for the budding of Japan-Georgia relations, the efforts
of Governor Carl E. Sanders should be noted. Governor Sanders,
along with Governor Katsushi Terazono of Kagoshima Prefecture,
established a sister state relationship between Georgia and Kagoshima
in 1 966. Governor Sanders made an official visit to Japan in that year
to inaugurate this new tie. The link to Kagoshima and the governor's
visit focused attention in Japan on Georgia and also paved the way
for regular visits of Georgia businessmen and academics to Japan
and for delegations of Japanese to visit Georgia.

Another primary factor in the development of Japan-Georgia ties
was the maturation of Japan as an advanced industrial state with a
substantial export market in the United States to supply with products
and to provide with after-purchase service and parts. As the transpor-
tation hub of the southeast, the Atlanta area became a key location
for warehouse, distribution, and sales offices for Japanese firms, just
as it is for U.S. companies. As Japanese firms experienced growth in
their U.S. markets and began to require U.S. manufacturing facilities,
Georgia again became a leading location for investments. The fac-
tors which attracted Japanese manufacturing facilities-a skilled, highly
motivated work force, access to transportation, availability of raw
materials and energy, and low land costs-again were similar to the
factors which have motivated U.S. firms to select Georgia as a site
for new manufacturing investment.

Japanese firms, however, did not focus on Georgia without a
substantial nudge. That was provided during Governor Jimmy Carter's
administration. As Mr. Lancaster has indicated in his article in this
journal, Georgia opened a trade and investment development office
in Tokyo in 1973 to publicize Georgia's advantages to potential in-
vestors. Governor Carter also succeeded in his effort to persuade the
Japanese government to locate its new Consulate General of the
U.S. Southeast in Atlanta. Consul General Kazuo Chiba arrived in
1974, establishing the consulate's offices in the Colony Square
complex and his official residence on Blackland Road. Since 1974,
nearly 100 Japanese firms have invested in Georgia. This more than
any other factor has made Georgia an important and growing part of
the U.S. -Japan relationship, rivaling California, Illinois, and the New
York-New Jersey area in number of Japanese investments.

172

Governor George Busbee built upon and greatly extended the
achievements of the Carter years. Most notably Governor Busbee
took the lead along with Consul General Chiba in founding the U.S.
Southeast/Japan Association in 1975. The Association brings top
private and public sector leaders from seven southeastern states into
contact with nationally prominent figures in Japanese business and
industry for annual meetings. The meetings are held in Japan in odd
numbered years and in alternate southeastern states in even num-
bered years. Governor Busbee led a one hundred member Georgia
delegation to the Association's sixth annual meeting in Japan in
1981. It was the Governor's sixth official visit to Japan during his
tenure in office.

The middle to late 1 970s was a time of transition and growth in the
Georgia-Japan relationship. Consul General Chiba departed for
another assignment in 1975, and Yoshifumi Ito became Japan's
official representative from 1976 to 1978. In 1978 Ito was posted to
Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Consul General Ryo Kawade arrived to take
up his duties. Kawade served until 1983, when he was replaced by
Kagechika Matano. During the Kawade consulship, the Japanese
business community in Georgia underwent transition. The earliest
organization of Japanese in the Atlanta area, the konwakai (discus-
sion club), was transformed into the more formally organized nihonjin
shokokai (Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry) in early
1980. This group's work is supplemented by the programming of the
hanamizukai (Flower and Water Club-Women's Club). The nihongo
gakko (Japanese Language School) was established so that Japa-
nese children would not be too far behind in language skills when
they would return to Japan for subsequent education. The school has
been crucial in calming the fear of many Japanese parents that a
three or four year assignment in the U.S. would cause their children
to incur serious educational handicaps that would disadvantage
them upon their return to Japan.

Transition and growth was also evident in the efforts of Georgians
to develop the relationship. The Georgia Ports Authority established
a representative office in Japan in 1976. As Mr. Day Lancaster has
noted, a number of Georgia communities began or strengthened
sister city linkages with communities in Japan. In the education area,
student and faculty exchanges were inaugurated between Kagoshima

173

University and the University of Georgia.

The Japan-America Society of Georgia,

At the end of the 1970s, there were approximately one thousand
Japanese citizens residing in Georgia and some fifty-five Japanese
firms located here. It was evident that the Japanese presence in
Georgia had grown to a substantial size and that the 1980s and
1990s were likely to be decades of further growth. A study by the
Japan Economic Research Center indicated that while Japanese
investment in North America was $4.5 billion in 1975, it had grown to
$8.5 billion by 1979 and will likely reach $155 billion by 1990. In a
recent opinion survey, Japanese business leaders ranked the top ten
locations for investment in the U.S. as follows: (1) California; (2)
Texas; (3) Illinois; (4) Georgia; (5) Tennessee; (6) Arizona; (7) Indi-
ana; (8) New Jersey; (9) Washington; (10) Michigan.1 Georgia's
experience in the 1 970s and the preliminary evidence of future trends
available in the late 1970s showed that the Japanese economic role
and human presence in Georgia's future would be an important one.

In 1979 a group of Georgians from business and academia came
together to form a planning committee for the creation of a Japan-
America Society of Georgia (JASG), an organization whose object
would be to upgrade knowledge of Japanese society, culture, and
public affairs among the citizens of Georgia. The organization also
aimed to extend hospitality to the more than one thousand Japanese
citizens temporarily in residence in Georgia and to make them aware
of the history and traditions of Georgia. The planning committee was
composed of people with substantial knowledge of Japan and long-
term residence in Japan for business or cultural purposes. They
recognized that because of the profound linguistic and cultural differ-
ences between Americans and Japanese, increased contact and
interaction would hold not only a promise of mutual benefit but also
possibilities for misunderstandings or simply a dearth of meaningful
communiccation. The organization's mission was to conduct pro-
grams and activities to bridge the cultural gap and thereby insure that
the Japanese presence in Georgia would be a fully realized opportu-
nity for the state's growth and development.

The planning committee members-Ann Godwey, Allen Judd, Mi-
chael McMullen, and George Waldner-were aided greatly in their

174

efforts by the enthusiastic support of the leadership of Coca-Cola
Company, particularly Ian Wilson, officer-in-charge of the company's
Pacific operations. This assistance was highly appropriate because
Coca-Cola Company is the leading example of a Georgia-based
company to have established itself in Japan. In Japan, moreover, as
Mr. Day Lancaster has noted, Coca-Cola is also identified with the
State of Georgia through the marketing of its coffee-flavored soft
drink called "Georgia."

The leading figure in the Japanese business community to sponsor
the formation of JASG has been Fred Chanoki, President of Murata-
Erie North America, Inc., one of the original Japanese manufacturing
investors in Georgia. In June 1 980 the founding meeting of the Board
of Directors of JASG was held in Atlanta. The decision was made to
incorporate the organization and to elect Ian Wilson as Chairman,
Fred Chanoki as Vice-Chairman, D. Raymond Riddle, President of
the First National Bank, as Treasurer, and George Waldner as
Executive Director. Governor Busbee and then-Consul General
Kawade were elected Honorary Co-Chairmen. The Articles of Incor-
poration adopted at the founding board meeting listed the
organization's purposes:

1 . To promote greater knowledge of Japan's culture, society, and
public affairs among the citizens of Georgia.

2. To promote greater knowledge of crucial issues and problems in
U.S. -Japan relations.

3. To provide Japanese citizens resident in Georgia with aspects of
American history, culture and lifestyles.

4. To promote friendly relations between the people of Georgia and
Japanese citizens residing in Georgia in order to secure better
understanding by the people of Georgia of the country, people,
and customs of Japan.

5. To provide a forum for discussion of topics of common interest to
the people of Georgia and the people of Japan, including the
arts, literature, and cultural ideas, aspirations, and development
of each of these areas.

6. To foster and promote scholarship among the students of the
colleges, universities and other institutions of higher learning, of
both countries, especially in those areas which would lead to a
better understanding of one country and its people by the other.

175

The newly-formed organization joined the Associated Japan-Amer-
ica Societies of the United States, Inc. The parent organization gave
programming help to the Atlanta chapter as well as to thirteen other
societies around the U.S.A. to best fulfill its purposes. The JASG
incorporated as a non-profit, non-governmental, cultural and educa-
tional organization.

In January 1 981 Betty Weltner became the first full-time JASG staff
member, as Executive Secretary. Mrs. Weltner opened the JASG's
Atlanta Office at 100 Colony Square.

Since September 1980, JASG has sponsored a wide range of
activities in support of its basic purposes. JASG hosted eight corpo-
rate luncheons, a corporate reception, and annual dinners, at which
experts in Japanese-American relations addressed the member-
ship.2 In 1981 JASG co-sponsored educational 'Japan Caravan' at
Georgia State University. JASG's women's activities have included a
luncheon honoring the director of the Association Japan-America
Societies; a tea ceremony; and half-Japanese, half-American tomo-
dachi (friendship groups), which meet bimonthly. JASG has spon-
sored other Japanese cultural activities in Atlanta including beginner
and intermediate level Japanese language classes.3 Through the
efforts of paid staff and of hundreds of volunteers, JASG continues to
foster understanding, communication, and friendship among Japa-
nese and Georgians.

NOTES

M Survey of Japanese Investments in the United States, (Chicago: Economic Development
Commission of the City of Chicago, 1 981 ).

September 23, 1980: Kenji Kawamura, Managing Director, Foreign Press Center, Japan,
"Recent Developments in Japanese Politics: Implications for U.S./Japan Relations; "Feb-
ruary 23, 1981: James Balloun, Managing Director, McKinsey & Company, Atlanta. "The
White Paper Report Written for the American Chamber of Commerce, Tokyo;" March 13,
1981: Shigemitsu Kuriyama, Chief Economist, IBM/Japan, "Japanese Culture and Econ-
omy;" May 7, 1981: Thomas N. Hague, Former President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce/
Japan, "Japan and America-Charting a New Course;" October 8, 1981 : Clyde Prestowitz,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Economic Policy, U.S. Dept. of Commerce,
"Current Issues in U.S./Japan Economic Affairs;" December 3, 1 981 : Jack Welsh, Director,
International Division, Georgia Department of Industry & Trade, "Report of 1981 Georgia
Mission to Japan;" February 8, 1 982: Tadayoshi Yamada, Executive Advisor, Nippon Steel
Corporation, "Behavioral Characteristics of Japanese Business;" and February 25, 1982:
Prof. James Buck, University of Georgia, "Japan's Defense Policy."

3November 3, 1980: "Japan and Culture" Day, Oglethorpe University; December 8, 1980:
Kabuki demonstration, Atlanta Historical Society; May 14-30, 1981: Japanese Film Festi-
val, High Museum of Art, June 21, 1981: Family Outing, co=sponsored by shokokai at

176

Stone Mountain park; November 7, 1981: Okinawa Court Dancers at the Civic Center
Auditorium. Beginning and intermediate Japanese language classes were offered quar-
terly by Toshiko Jedlicka, a graduate of Rikkyo University with a M.A. degree in teaching
Japanese as a second language. As of 1990 the offices of JASG are located at 225
Peachtree Street, Suite 801 , South Tower, Atlanta, Georgia, 30303, TEL: (404) 524-7399.

177

Enhancing Understanding of Japan Through

an Informal Coalition of

Scholars, Educators and Others:

The Japan Education Network in Georgia

(JENGA)

DONALD O. SCHNEIDER*

In January 1985 a group of educators, scholars, and others inter-
ested in Georgia's youth's understanding of Japan came together to
explore the possibility for facilitating instruction about the Japanese
people and their nation in the state's elementary and secondary
schools. This initial meeting was inspired by the vision of Robert
Broadwater, the Executive Director of the Japan-America Society of
Georgia (JASG), who in the fall of 1984 had enlisted the support of
Emory faculty member and past president of the National Council for
the Social Studies, Carole Hahn. With modest support from JASG, a
group that was to become the Japan Education Network in Georgia
(JENGA) met the same month at Hahn's invitation at Emory Univer-
sity to: 1) identify resources in Georgia for teaching about Japan; 2)
project a vision of the possibilities for teaching and learning about
Japan; 3) outline specific projects that might be undertaken to achieve
the vision; and 4) determine a plan of action for implementing pro-
posed projects.

*Donald Schneider received his Ph.D. in history and education from George Peabody College
in 1965. He is Professor of Social Science Education at the University of Georgia and is
President of the National Council for the Social Studies. Dr. Schneider edited, with John C
Cogan, Perspectives on Japan: A Guide to Teachers (Washington, D.C: National Council for
the Social Studies, 1983).

178

Among the two dozen people attending this meeting were profes-
sors of history, social science, and education; teachers and curricu-
lum specialists from public schools; personnel from the State of
Georgia Department of Education; and representatives from Atlanta
area businesses, the Japanese Consulate in Atlanta, and JASG.

The Creation of JENGA

This group recognized that since there was no Japan Center of
Asian Studies Outreach Center in Georgia, an alternative coordinat-
ing unit would be desirable. Accordingly, the participants agreed to
establish an informal coalition to be titled The Japan Education
Network in Georgia, or JENGA. They also took action on the tasks
outlined by Hahn. They identified a number of existing resources and
programs related to curriculum, instructional materials for students
and teachers, exchange programs or study abroad programs, speak-
ers on Japan, support groups and organizations, and public informa-
tion programs that might be useful to schools and teachers. They
proceeded to create a list of possible projects, some short term,
others longer term, that would enhance the teaching about Japan in
Georgia. Individuals or groups then agreed to begin work on various
of these projects or continue on with those projects that they had
already initiated. Carole Hahn agreed to serve as chair of JENGA
and members agreed to meet again in May and report on the
progress of the various projects.

By the second meeting in May 1985, varying degrees of progress
were reported on 13 different projects. These included completion of
a slide-tape presentation for middle grades, video taping by the State
Department of Education of 14 films selected from among the 96
titles the Consulate had available and that could be duplicated for
local school use, initiation of work on a resource directory, implemen-
tation of a special program for schools by the Consulate entitled
Japan Caravan, planning of a teacher workshop on Japan, develop-
ment of a special course on the Far East in one of Atlanta's high
schools, development of a teaching unit for middle grades, initiation
of a video exchange project between a Fulton County middle school
and a Japanese middle school, planning of a project tentatively
entitled Japan in a Box, to be undertaken by Japanese parents of
students in the Atlanta area Japanese language school, inclusion of

179

articles about education in the Newsletter of JASG, and initiation of a
program of essay writing about Japan in Atlanta Public Schools.

Encouraged by the amount of ongoing activity, JENGA members
discussed the need to coordinate their efforts in a more comprehen-
sive and systematic manner. Informed that the Japan-United States
Friendship Commission might be willing to consider funding a state-
wide project for improving the teaching about Japan, several mem-
bers agreed to meet in June to explore a possible proposal. Out of
that meeting came a plan for a comprehensive multi-year project.
The plan called for an initial assessment of students' knowledge and
attitudes about Japan, obtaining teacher views of what was needed
and feasible, and identifying available instructional materials for teach-
ing about Japan. Phase two of the project was to involve the develop-
ment of exemplary materials to meet the specific needs and circum-
stances in Georgia schools. The plan for the third or dissemination
phase called for a series of teacher workshops, presentations at
professional meetings, and classroom demonstrations.

Such a project posed some problems for JENGA. As an informal
organization it was not possible for JENGA to submit a grant pro-
posal. It was therefore decided to have the JASG submit the proposal
and subcontract with one of the universities to provide some of the
needed services. The decision to have the JASG serve as the project
agency raised another issue: that of JENGA's relationship to the
Japan-America Society. Key members of JENGA did not want to
simply become an arm of JASG. The writing team nevertheless
decided to proceed and a grant proposal was drafted, approved by
JENGA members, and subsequently sent on to the United States-
Japan Friendship Commission in the late summer of 1985. The
Friendship Commission is an agency of the United States Congress
empowered to distribute funds Congress controls.

The issues that had been raised in the proposal deliberations
resulted in a review of JENGA's mission and structure. By early fall
1985, a formal mission statement and organizational plan were
circulated. The mission statement was accepted, as was the pattern
of quarterly meetings, but members backed away from the proposal
for establishing a formal structure and instead supported the original
conception of an informal coalition of educators and friends of educa-
tion concerned with teaching about Japan. The major purposes of

180

JENGA as outlined in the revised statement were to:

1. Disseminate information about events, activities, educational
products, and areas of need related to education about Japan;

2. Serve as a forum for exchange of ideas and information related
to education about Japan;

3. Serve as a liaison organization for various interested parties
such as the Japanese Consulate, the Japan-America Society of
Georgia, the Georgia Department of Education, local school
districts, universities and colleges, and teachers;

4. Serve as a consultation group for those developing educational
projects related to Japan.

With the matter of aims and organization resolved, members awaited
word on the grant proposal. Partial funding was approved by the
Friendship Commission, but was to be used primarily for curriculum
development and diffusion efforts. What had been planned to take
three or four years had to be accomplished in less than two years
with considerably less funding than initially projected. Nevertheless,
JENGA and JASG decided to proceed. Under the leadership of co-
chairs Beverly Armento of Georgia State University and Helen
Richardson of Fulton County Schools, a revised plan was conceived
and the timetable telescoped.

Work began on the project in February 1 986, with an initial meeting
of five teams of teachers and other educators and a small core of
Japan specialists. Each team worked on a single sub-project for a
designated grade level. For the primary grades two projects were
undertaken. One was the development of a prototype artifacts kit and
accompanying teacher guide that focused on 13 typical topics in-
cluded in the kindergarten-grade 3 social studies program. A second
team developed a set of lessons for grades 3-5 on various aspects of
Japanese life and culture. For middle school level, one team devel-
oped a multi-disciplinary unit on Japan's land and people for grades
6-7 and another team developed a unit focusing on economic rela-
tionships of Japan and Georgia for the eighth-grade Georgia studies
curriculum. The high school team developed a series of lessons in
five units that could be integrated in their entirety in world geography
or world cultures courses or used more selectively in the govern-
ment, economics, or sociology courses.

Sufficient funds were available for pilot-testing of all materials

181

except the artifacts kit in 50 to 100 classrooms in the winter and
spring of 1987. As a result of the extensive field testing, JENGA
received many positive comments and some suggestions for im-
provement and revision of the materials. Unfortunately, neither JASG
nor JENGA has been able to follow-up with further development of
these materials because additional funding was not available and
because the co-chairs and other key members of JENGA had taken
on new professional responsibilities and were unable to continue
providing the leadership needed to keep the network active.

JENGA In Retrospect

Keen observers of schooling in the United States, such as John
Goodlad, have long called for collaborative efforts and linkages of
schools, teachers, academicians, researchers, and others (Goodlad,
1975, 1984). Such efforts, however, should be true partnerships with
school people. As the limited impact of many of the school curriculum
projects of the affluent 1960s made clear, money is not the issue.
Academicians cannot expect to bring about pervasive and enduring
curriculum change using a top-down model of development and
dissemination. JENGA members had organized their projects with
this lesson clearly in mind.

The current wave of educational reform exhibits the same strong
concern with students' academic preparation that has been a recur-
ring theme in reform efforts of the last century. Professional meet-
ings, educational journals, as well as the popular media, express
increasing concern about the substance of the curriculum, and about
the ways to improve the teaching of history, geography, and other
disciplines. With this resurgence of interest in traditional disciplines
there continues to be a need for the development of students' aca-
demic skills. Skills, however, cannot be taught in a vacuum. Teach-
ers need the scholarly background and resources that will enable
them to blend the teaching of skills with content about other cultures.

Although the contemporary school curriculum is less exclusively
centered on Western Culture than formerly, there remains a need for
more content about non-Western cultures in the curriculum. Content
about Asia in general and Japan in particular remains spotty. Asian
scholars can influence curriculum content to the extent that they help
to produce textbooks and other materials that more accurately, per-

182

ceptively, and interestingly present East-Asian content.

Academicians can do even more to have an impact on the curricu-
lum as taught (as opposed to that described in curriculum docu-
ments) if they enter into cooperative efforts with educators instead of
criticizing from the sidelines. JENGA represents one such effort to
bring together Asianists and pre-college teachers.

The JENGA experience also helped identify some of the issues
and problems encountered in such ventures. The informal organiza-
tion is both an asset and a problem. It is difficult to sustain such a
coalition or to provide continuity, especially without a source of funds.
JENGA relied heavily on the efforts of a few key people for leadership
and the Japan-America Society of Georgia for logistical support.

What assessment then can be made of JENGA? Although its
members failed to meet the challenge of maintaining the coalition
and building on initial successes, JENGA demonstrated what can
temporarily be achieved through an informal organization of schol-
ars, teachers, business people, and government officials. It ad-
dressed educational and professional collegial needs not otherwise
met at the time. With the development of the University System of
Georgia Asian Studies Consortium, headquartered at Georgia South-
western College and discussed in the next article, and with the
emergence of centers such as the University of Georgia's recently
established Asian Studies Center, perhaps the void left by the recent
inactivity of JENGA will be filled.

REFERENCES

Goodlad, J. The Dynamics of Educational Change (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,

1976)
Goodlad, J. A Place Called School. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1984)

183

The Asian Studies Consortium of Georgia

(ASCOG)

DON CHANG LEE'

Background

Through a long process of meetings and exchange of ideas among
many faculty members from the system's institutions, the Asian
Studies Consortium of Georgia (ASCOG) was established in 1 986 as
a system-wide program under the auspices of the International Inter-
cultural Studies Program (MSP) of the University System of Georgia.
Dr. Don Chang Lee, Professor of Anthropology at Georgia South-
western College, was appointed by the Office of the Chancellor as
Director for the Consortium.

As a first step, faculty members who were interested in Asian
Studies were identified and contacts were made with many of them to
seek suggestions and support for the program. The favorable re-
sponses to the idea of establishing the program in the University
System were overwhelming.

On January 1 8, 1 986, at the Southeastern Conference of the Asso-
ciation for Asian Studies in Raleigh, North Carolina, the MSP called a
meeting to discuss and share the ideas of ASCOG. The meeting was
presided over by Pamela J. Dorn, Administrative Coordinator of the
MSP. Eighteen people, most of them professors from colleges and
universities in the State of Georgia, attended.

The participants at the meeting enthusiastically received and ac-

*Dr. Lee is Professor of Anthropology at Georgia Southwestern College and Director of the
Asian Studies Consortium of Georgia. In 1 972 he received his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology
from the University of Georgia. In 1 981 -82 Dr. Lee was professor-in- charge of the Japanese
Studies Program of the University System of Georgia Studies Abroad Program.

184

cepted the proposal to establish an Asian Studies Consortium and
presented many constructive ideas to aid in its inception. These
ideas ranged from specific academic programs to the seeking of
support from businesses, communities, and government agencies.

Following the aforementioned meeting, the MSP sponsored an
International Studies Conference at Georgia College in Milledgeville
in March 1986. One of the topics discussed at the conference was
the establishment of ASCOG. Dr. Don Chang Lee of Georgia South-
western College presented a brief outline to the group about ASCOG
purposes and needs, activities, organizational structure, funding, and
the benefits to University System institutions.

On April 25, 1986, an ASCOG steering committee meeting was
held at the office of I ISP. Seven faculty members from different
institutions and MSP staff were present. The participants discussed a
wide range of topics related to the Consortium such as means of
publicizing the program and ways of seeking participation and coop-
eration within the System and externally. The following general agree-
ments were reached at the meeting:

1 . The name of the organization will be the Asian Studies Consor-
tium of Georgia (ASCOG).

2. ASCOG will have an advisory council which will consist of ad-
ministrators, faculty, government officials, and individuals from
the private sector. ASCOG would wish to designate a represen-
tative from each institution in the University System.

3. The formulation of the mission statement and goals will be done
by the I ISP staff and Dr. Don Chang Lee. The mission statement
read:

In a changing world of increasing interdependence and
interaction, the acquisition of knowledge and skills to cope
with international and intercultural differences is an impor-
tant quality of American citizenship. The educational pro-
grams carried out by ASCOG will contribute to the develop-
ment of more capable Georgians today and tommorrow.The
future of humanity depends upon the extent to which people
in the many corners of the world understand and appreci-
ate the differences in culture, institutions, and practices
among other human populations. Having insight into, and
awareness of, such differences will eventually contribute to

185

the development of a peaceful global community.
Within the framework of international affairs, the importance of
economic relationships between Asia and the United States fur-
ther heightens the need for developing an Asian Studies Pro-
gram. In the global community, Asia is an increasingly important
region in terms of our national interests. The programs linking the
Asian and American peoples will result in mutual benefits for both
and strengthen the world community.

ASCOG will strive to achieve these ends by developing educa-
tionally rich and meaningful Asian Studies Programs for Geor-
gians.

Goals

ASCOG will develop high quality academic programs related to
Asia. The programs will include the development of Asian area
studies courses, major and minor programs in Asian Studies, student
exchanges, Asian language courses, and study-abroad programs in
Asia.

ASCOG will contribute to faculty development programs by ar-
ranging faculty exchanges and research collaboration among the
University Systems faculty and also between the faculties of Asian
institutions and the University System. In addition, faculty workshops
and conferences will be sponsored by ASCOG.

ASCOG will render services to business communities and the
public at large. The services will include efforts to attract Asian
industries to Georgia; to open markets in Asia for Georgia products,
including agricultural goods; to sponsor seminars and conferences
for Georgia business people to increase their awareness of cultural
factors involved in business, management, and trade; and to provide
any other services for Georgia's economic growth and development
in relation to Asia.

ASCOG will work in cooperation with public and private school
systems in Georgia to promote the study of Asia by providing instruc-
tional materials and human resources. ASCOG will also work with
Georgia school systems to teach Asian languages to elementary and
secondary school children.

ASCOG will serve as a resource center for Asian Studies in
Georgia. Collection and production of resource materials such as

186

books and audio-visual aids will be made available to the System's
institutions and the elementary and secondary schools.

ASCOG will function as an intermediary to establish a sister rela-
tionship between educational institutions in Georgia and Asia.

ASCOG will serve as a center for the exchange of activities, ideas,
works, events, and any other matters related to Asia through publica-
tion of a periodic newsletter. The publication may eventually expand
to include a scholarly journal of Asian Studies.

CURRENT ACTIVITIES

ASCOG has an ongoing exchange agreement with Tunghai Uni-
versity in Taiwan. An English professor from Georgia Southwestern
College taught at Tunghai University as a Fulbright professor in
1988. The Consortium also has an exchange and cooperation agree-
ment with the Hokkaido, Japan, International Foundation. As of 1 990,
there are some fifty Japanese students from the Hokkaido Interna-
tional Foundation on campus at Georgia Southwestern College.
These students are taking courses in English, linguistics, and meth-
ods of teaching Japanese as a second language in preparation for
teaching assignments in the Fall throughout the country and in
Canada. Three of these students have been selected to teach within
Georgia at the University of Georgia, Brenau College, and Georgia
Southwestern College.

During the summers of 1987, 1988, and 1989, ASCOG, in coop-
eration with Hokkaido International Foundation, sent students, fac-
ulty, and interested member of the public to Hakodate, Japan, for a
program of summer studies. The two-month stay included intensive
study of the Japanese language, culture, history, and business man-
agement practices. ASCOG has sent approximately 20 individuals to
Hakodate, where they lived with Japanese families for the entire
period. In 1989 six full tuition scholarships were being furnished to
the students by ASCOG through the courtesy of HIF.

The Board of Regents designated Georgia Southwestern College
as a Center for Asian Studies for the University System of Georgia.
The new Center has as its primary purpose to promote Asian lan-
guages and culture and serve as a model for the University System
institutions. In addition, the Center, being the base of ASCOG, will
work in cooperation with the Consortium to promote the study of

187

Asian languages and cultures in the State of Georgia. The Center,
working with ASCOG, will initially promote the teaching of the Japa-
nese language at University System institutions. In addition, it will
focus on developing Japanese language teaching at public schools
in Georgia.

The advisory council to ASCOG meets on a quarterly basis to plan
the activities. A sub-committee is compiling an inventory of Asian
studies resources available at institutions in Georgia. ASCOG pub-
lishes a quarterly newsletter about exchange experiences, publica-
tions, activities, and programs related to Asia. Items for publication in
the newsletter should be sent to:

The Center for Asian Studies

Georgia Southwestern College

Americus, Georgia 31709

TEL: (912)928-1325

TEL: (912)928-1577

188

The Atlanta Basha of the China-Burma India
Veterans Association (CBIVA)

ELMER E. FELECKT

Within the United States there are numerous groups organized to
ain recognition and advance the rights and benefits accrued to
eterans of this country's wars and conflicts. Among them is the
hina-Burma-lndia Veterans Association (CBIVA), founded in Mil-
'aukee, Wisconsin, in 1947. As stated in its articles of incorporation,

aims to promote a feeling of fellowship by renewing old acquain-
inceships and making new friends among those who have a com-
lon bond, by reason of their mutual service in or with the Armed
ervices of the United States of America in the China-Burma-India
leater of operations in World War II. The articles also state that
'hile this group will cooperate with other veterans organizations, it
smains a social and non-political entity and must never merge with
ny political group or organization. It also aims to better acquaint
jnericans with problems of East, South, and Southeast Asia. The
ational officers include a commander, senior vice commander, judge
dvocate, provost marshal, nine regional junior vice commanders,
nd an adjutant-finance officer. State departments and local bashas
re organized in a similar manner.

The CBIVA has continued to grow since its founding. It established
)cal branches throughout the country. Each local branch is called a
asha and reports to national headquarters, either directly or through

state department organization. The term basha is the Assamese
ford for a dwelling. As of 1988 this organization had over 7,000

\Ar. Felecki is Public Relations Officer of the Atlanta Basha (local chapter) of the China-
urma-lndia Veterans Association.

189

members nationwide, over 1,000 in the South and more than 120
members in Georgia. Thus far membership continues to grow de-
spite the aging and demise of eligible veterans.

As the CBIVA continued to grow, it expanded; and today there are
bashas located in almost every state in the country. It is particularly
active in the South and Southeastern states. The state of Florida
boasts the largest number of CBIVA members in the country. Florida
has a state department organization and 17 local bashas throughout
the state.

The Atlanta Basha, CBIVA, is the only basha located in the state of
Georgia. However, it is one of the largest bashas of the national
CBIVA organization with a current (1988) active membership of 125
veterans. CBIVA bashas are also located in the other Southeastern
states of Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina,
Tennessee, and Virginia.

The Atlanta Basha was founded in 1977. Its founding was insti-
gated by the selection of the city of Atlanta as the site for the 28th
national reunion of the CBIVA in 1976. The founder of the Atlanta
Basha, James S. Fletcher of Austell, Georgia, a CBI Veteran, inad-
vertently chanced upon the reunion proceedings at the hotel when
the convention was in progress.

The Atlanta Basha held its initial meeting on October 15, 1977 at
the Ramada Inn, Six Flags, Atlanta, Georgia. The National Executive
Committee was represented by Marvin A. Walker, Jr., Vice Com-
mander-South; Victor Tamashunas, Junior Vice Commander-South-
east, and his wife Doris; and Charles W. Rose, Past Junior Vice
Commander-South. A telegram of congratulations from Georgia's
United States Senator Herman E. Talmadge was read. Through the
courtesy of Senator Talmadge the Atlanta Basha received a United
States Flag which had flown over the National Capitol.

Commander Walker of the National Executive Committee admini-
stered the oath of office to the new officers. The initial slate of officers
of the Atlanta Basha were: James S. Fletcher, Basha Commander;
R.E. Wilson, Adjutant; C.P. Blackman, Finance Officer; and W.A.
Moye, Chaplain.

In accordance with the aims of the CBIVA, the Atlanta Basha
conducts its affairs on a purely social and non-political basis. Dinner
meetings are usually held at hotels in the metropolitan Atlanta area

190

several times a year. Meetings are also attended by members' wives,
relatives, friends, and potential members. Various dignitaries attend
from time to time.

Following dinner at each of the regular meetings, a program or
speaker is presented. Usually these programs present information
about past or present events in Asia. Speakers appearing before
meeting audiences have been of Chinese, Burmese, and East Indian
origin as well as missionary and military personnel who have served
in Asia. In recent years several of the Atlanta Basha members have
revisited the old China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. Past
Atlanta Basha Commanders George B. Hightower and Ralph S.
Turner made trips back to India and China in 1987. They were
successful in recording their travels on film. Soon after their return to
this country, their films, with a narration of familiar places they visited,
were presented at regular basha meetings.

There have been numerous guest speakers over the years who
have given interesting speeches about events and affairs in Asia.
More notable among them are the following:

Mrs. Gerry O'Connor briefed the basha members in May 1987
about her family's escape from Rangoon, Burma, ahead of advanc-
ing Japanese armies in 1 942. She explained how, as a child, she fled
with her family, traveling at times in dugout canoes on the Chindwin
River to the northern border of Burma. She ultimately crossed the
border into India and went on to Calcutta to reach a safe haven,
where she remained until the end of the war.

At a February 1985 meeting, Mrs. Lucille Turner, the missionary
wife of American evangelist and CBI veteran Harold L. Turner,
discussed her experiences while serving with her husband in India.
She spoke at length about her trials and tribulations while endeavor-
ing to raise a family under the stressful conditions encountered
during their Indian years.

In June 1985 Mr. Yun-Feng Pai, Director of Information for the
Atlanta Office, Coordination Council For North American Affairs,
Republic of China, was a guest speaker. Mr. Pai described Taiwan's
economy, culture, industry, and trade practices.

In October 1987 the Atlanta Basha was entertained by the Cere-
monial Kukri Combat Drill Team of the American Bando Association.
The Kukri Drill teams were initially trained by a retired Gurkha officer,

191

Dr. U. Maung Gyi. Bando drill teams introduced the kukri knife to this
country as a drill weapon. The Georgia Black Panthers Kukri Drill
Team is under the direction of Dr. Geoff Willcher, founder of the class
at Georgia State University.

In February 1988 the Atlanta Basha invited Dr. Ravi Sarma to
speak on the topic of "India Since World War II."

Occasionally meetings are held away from the Atlanta area. In the
spring of 1983 the Atlanta Basha and the South Carolina Basha held
a joint dinner meeting in Augusta, Georgia. In March 1 986 the Atlanta
Basha was invited to a meeting with the Heart of Dixie Basha in
Montgomery, Alabama. In May 1986 the Atlanta Basha held its
regular dinner meeting at Fort Benning, Georgia. While visiting in
Fort Benning, members were taken on a tour of the United States
Infantry Museum. This museum features displays about the CBI
Theater of Operations during World War II.

For one week during the summer the CBIVA holds a national
reunion at a city somewhere in the United States. Boston, Massachu-
setts; Louisville, Kentucky; San Diego, California; and Denver, Colo-
rado, were the sites chosen for the 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988
reunions. A delegation of members from the Atlanta Basha always
attends to deliver a report on local basha activities.

In the fall, winter, and spring the national CBIVA organizations
conduct executive board meetings in various regions of the country.
These meetings are open to all members. Regional meetings were
held in Biloxi, Mississippi, in the spring of 1986; in New Orleans,
Louisiana, in the spring of 1987; and in Jacksonville, Florida, in the
fall of 1987.

The Atlanta Basha maintains a close association with the Atlanta
Office of the Coordination Council for North American Affairs of the
Republic of China (Taiwan). This relationship was established prior
to 1978, when the United States ended diplomatic recognition of the
Republic of China. As previously noted, the Atlanta Basha is bound
to be in compliance with national by-laws and must remain neutral
and non-political in all affairs. Consequently it remains amenable to
established relations with the People's Republic of China (mainland
China) as well as with Burma and India, if and when consulates from
those countries are established in Georgia. The basha attempts to
maintain good relations with all nations of East, South, and South-

192

>ast Asia as well as with other veterans' organizations.

The Atlanta Basha remains concerned with current events in East,
South, and Southeast Asia. An example of its recent interest oc-
curred in October 1987 when it was reported from Washington, D.C.,
hat the remains of several crewmen from a World War II cargo
airplane had been located at a crash site in the jungles of northern
3urma. The crash site was discovered by troops of the Kachin
ndependence Organization, a rebel faction that controls much of
lorthern Burma along with several other rebel groups. A United
States Army spokesman said a request would be made to Burma to
;ee if there was any possibility of going into the area to make a
ecovery. In an article about the crash discovery, The Atlanta Jour-
nal-Constitution interviewed CBIVA member James S. Fletcher.
rletcher was quoted as saying, on the basis of his experience in
ighting with Kachins for two and a half years, "to get back in there
'ou would definitely have to have the help of the Kachins." Although
nost members of the CBIVA would favor actions to recover the crew
nembers' remains, the official position of the CBIVA is to observe our
country's attempts to negotiate a recovery through channels the
Jnited States Government officially deems to be appropriate.

In October 1987 the Atlanta Basha celebrated its tenth anniver-
>ary. The group met to socialize in hospitality rooms at the Raddison
nn-Central on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, October 16th
and 17th. The meeting rooms were filled with displays, exhibits,
souvenirs, photos, and articles reminiscent of China, Burma, and
ndia during World War II. During the banquet on Saturday evening,
Dctober 18th, the audience was addressed by National Commander
Darl De Leeuw, of Palos Verdes, California, and several past national
commanders from Ohio and Virginia. Visitors were recognized from
)ashas in the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina,
and Tennessee. All of the Atlanta Basha commanders were also
jiven recognition. They were:

Commander's Name Year

James S. Fletcher 1 977-1 978

Anthony C. Serkadakis 1 978-1 979

William A. Moye 1979-1980

Floyd L. Whittle 1980-1981

Clifford P. Blackman 1 981 -1 982

193

Ralph S. Turner 1982-1983

David P. Doughty 1 983-1 984

Elmer E. Feleki 1984-1985

George C. Ward 1 985-1 986

George B. Hightower 1 986-1 987

Eugene G. Smith 1 987-1 988

Eleven people in attendance at the tenth anniversary banquet had
also attended the first official meeting of the Atlanta Basha.

The tenth anniversary observance of the Atlanta Basha was brought
to a close with a reaffirmation of CBIVA aims and purposes. Notable
among these are the aims to preserve the recollections, comrade-
ships, and experiences of those who have served in East, South, and
Southeast Asia.

194

Georgia's Place in the History of

Friends of Free China (FOFC):

The Viewpoint of Its Executive Director

JACK E. BUTTRAM*

Friends of Free China (FOFC) is a private non-profit organization
of Americans interested in maintaining contacts and good will with
the Republic of China. It was incorporated in New York in 1972 by F.
Clifton White, the political strategist behind the early presidential
campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater. The first national co-chairmen
were Goldwater and James A. Farley, Postmaster General under
President Franklin Roosevelt. The idea behind the fledgling organi-
zation was to create a non-partisan privately funded American group
that would shore up the long-standing friendship between the people
of the Republic of China and the people of the United States.

After James Farley's death in 1 976, when I joined FOFC, I saw the
necessity to reconstitute a national board of directors and find a new
national co-chairman. Anna Chennault, Washington businesswoman,
widow of Louisiana native and Flying Tiger General Clair Chennault,
and a prominent Friend of Free China, suggested that Thomas G.
Corcoran, Sr., would be a good Democrat to balance Republican
Goldwater. Corcoran agreed to take the honorary position. With
funds donated mostly by Chinese businessmen, we set about organ-
izing local chapters around the country. In Georgia, we concentrated
on two cities, Atlanta and Savannah. As of 1990 there are also

*Mr. Buttram is Executive Director of Friends of Free China. He was a communication's major
at Bob Jones University, served in Richard M. Nixon's White House as principal staff assistant
to Counsellor to the President Anne Armstrong, and has been a registered foreign agent for
the Republic of China.

195

chapters in Augusta, Dawson and northern Georgia near Mount
Berry, with more Georgia chapters likely to be formed.

United States Background

After World War II, China enjoyed a great reservoir of good will in
the United States. Walter Judd, former medical missionary to China
and United States Congressman from Minnesota, had spoken all
over the Midwest before the war trying to warn Americans about the
disaster we were preparing for ourselves by sending scrap iron and
oil to a restive Japan bent on building a world empire. He continues to
be an outstanding Friend of Free China today, but he is part of an
aging group of supporters. Also in the early days of FOFC United
States House of Representatives Speaker John McCormack of Mas-
sachusetts lent his name and influence to the budding organization,
as did other prominent members of Congress.

Over the years there was a constant erosion of the "old friends."
Attrition took its toll, and the political leaders of Taiwan's ruling
Kuomintang (KMT) party on Taiwan failed to give sufficient attention
to making new friends, choosing instead to rely upon old tried and
true allies. In the late summer and early fall of 1971 the "handwriting
was on the wall" at the United Nations. The KMT's worst fears came
to pass. Representatives of the World War II Nationalist government
of China, our staunch Pacific ally and one of the four great powers
signatory to the establishment of the United Nations, were barely
saved from being physically booted out. They "took a walk" before a
vote to admit the People's Republic of China was actually cast. Later
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger flew a secret mission to Guilin in
the People's Republic of China to set up details of President Nixon's
visit, a precursor of United States recognition of the People's Repub-
lic.

So FOFC began in 1972 as a rallying point to keep old friends and
make new ones. The basic plan included organizing as many state
chapters as could be managed on the donated budget and staging
social and cultural events that would call attention to the island
republic of Taiwan that was engaged in a desperate struggle to retain
its identity and survive. State chapters were organized in Georgia,
Alabama, Florida, New York, Illinois, California, and Rhode Island,
and more were planned.

196

Dormancy Threatens

In 1976 FOFC was relatively dormant. F. Clifton White had a busy
political consulting practice to attend to and had handed the reins
over to conservative activist Marvin Leibman, the moving force be-
hind the old "Committee of One Million," often dubbed by the press
"The China Lobby." For Marvin, too, the basic problems of getting
people in diverse areas of a state together proved too difficult to
manage from New York. The meager budget did not allow for much
travel. There were only about six "paper" state chapters in the early
days.

The Crisis Comes

On December 15, 1978 President Jimmy Carter, former Governor
of Georgia, woke United States Ambassador Leonard Unger in Taipei
at three in the morning with the news the United States would, on
January 1 , shift its diplomatic recognition from the government of the
Republic of China (on Taiwan) to the People's Republic of China, the
Communist government headquartered in Peking. He was instructed
to communicate that to Taiwan's President Chiang Ching-kuo in
person immediately. Next day, in a flash of passion, Special Trade
Representative Warren Christopher's car was overturned and burned
by a Taipei mob accompanied by widespread cheers and jeers.

Open Window-Two Weeks

In the wake of this recognition, a brief window was left open for a
symbolic action. "Twin Oaks," the residence of the last Chinese
Ambassador, James C.H. Shen, is on the national landmark registry
for historic homes in northwest Washington. At one time the imposing
frame mansion on Woodley Road near the Washington National
Cathedral was owned by a close relative of Alexander Graham Bell. It
was purchased in the 1930s by the government of China as a
residence for its ambassador. That made it an official embassy.

The large house, its outbuildings, and the ten acres it sat on were
worth several million dollars in the 1978 Washington real estate
market. Its spacious lawns and veranda were the setting for many
important functions on the Washington social calendar. If the normal
course of events was allowed to transpire, similar to what had
happened a few months earlier when the government of Iran was

197

overthrown, the valuable and symbolic Shen property would become
property of the People's Republic of China. Indeed, it was rumored
that such was part of the deal struck by President Carter's represen-
tatives when diplomatic recognition was offered to the People's
Republic of China.

Thomas Corcoran was one of Roosevelt's whiz-kids called the
"Brain Trust" in the days of the New Deal and a frequent visitor to
the winter White House at Georgia's Warm Springs. Corcoran devel-
oped a plan to keep this "symbol of free China" in "free hands." He
began to execute a legal maneuver he had perfected and success-
fully defended before the United Kingdom's highest court-the Privy
Council. His legal work established a precedent in international law
which stands today. Corcoran, an adroit Washington attorney and
confidant of many famous figures besides Franklin D. Roosevelt, had
assisted General Chennault in keeping the planes of the Chinese Air
Force which had been spirited out to Hong Kong in 1949 out of
the hands of the Chinese Communists. Those planes helped organ-
ize the Flying Tiger Line, an important air freight carrier in East Asia
today. In 1978 as counsel to the Republic of China he transferred the
real estate property to an organization independent of the govern-
ment and protected by United States laws, FRIENDS OF FREE
CHINA. The Legislative and Executive Yuan in Taipei officially au-
thorized the move.

How The Deed Was Done

So it came about that at about eight o'clock one evening in late
December, 1978, in the dining room of Washington's prestigious
University Club, only three blocks from the White House, I handed
over a check for ten dollars to Thomas Corcoran as "consideration,"
and took possession, in the name of FRIENDS OF FREE CHINA, of
the title and deed to a ten million dollar parcel of property. I had to get
my son to write his personal check since we had rushed to Washing-
ton so fast in a private plane that I had left my money and checkbook
at home.

Now FOFC had a mansion but no money to run it or keep it up. I
hired security guards to keep the People's Republic government from
coming and just taking it over. That is what happened when the
Shah's government was overthrown and his representatives were

198

ousted by those of the Ayatollah from Washington's Iranian em-
bassy. But now I needed money for heating fuel, electricity, phones,
and taxes. Since the property was no longer considered an embassy
by the D. C. government, it was subject to real-estate taxes. During
the four years FOFC owned the property, real estate taxes amounted
to more than half a million dollars.

Mrs. Chennault, who served on the board of the District of Colum-
bia National Bank, put us in touch with people at the bank who
enabled us to secure a loan. We borrowed $100,000 against
$10,000,000 collateral to operate. It was a hectic time. My wife had
the upstairs-downstairs experience of writing all the checks for main-
taining the upkeep of a very large and drafty mansion, and we prayed
for the day we could stop being Washington landlords.

Property Returned to the Republic of China

Over four years later we were able to return the property to the
Coordination Council for North American Affairs (CCNAA) the or-
ganization that serves as the Republic of China embassy. Our
United States "embassy" in Taipei is the American Institute in Tai-
wan, staffed by State Department personnel who are either retired or
on "temporary assignment" and thus relieved of their regular duties
while they continue to acquire seniority, pension, and health benefits.
In this way, the United States manages not to have "official" relations
with the Republic of China.

In order to maintain FOFC's necessary arm's length independence
from the government of the Republic of China, FOFC sold the
embassy residence of Twin Oaks back to the CCNAA. With the
proceeds the Board of Directors established a trust fund which is
used to maintain scholarship programs of FOFC and carry on other
cultural and historical programs.

Present Work of FOFC

As of 1989 FOFC has about eighty active chapters in most States
and one in Canada. They engage in various kinds of expressions of
friendship with the people of the Republic of China. One of our most
popular efforts is a high-school pen pal program. We have worked in
establishing sister-cities relationships through the regular sister-cit-
ies program. We have conducted tours for young students and

199

adults, made two motion pictures, helped sponsor performing groups
especially in the fine arts, established scholarships, conducted essay
and speech competitions and generally tried to foster increased
exchange and mutual understanding between the peoples of our two
nations. Atlanta, Savannah, and Rome represent three of our most
active chapters in Georgia, and one of America's former Ambassa-
dors to Taiwan, Walter P. McConaughy, makes his winter home in
Atlanta and is active in the work of the chapter there. For further
information about FOFC movies, scholarships, essay contests and
other activities, contact: Friends of Free China, 1629 K. Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20006 or 1 21 2 Haywood Road, Suite #400, Green-
ville, SC 29615, TEL: (803) 288-6651.

Our chapters take on the character of the people in the local areas
who are interested in Taiwan:
*ln San Jose, California, one of our most active chapters is headed
by Mrs. Helen Serenka, who stages an annual flag-raising cere-
mony on the grounds of the county office building when the
Republic of China celebrates its founding day on October 10.
*Until recently our Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Chapter was headed by
a retired Navy Captain Murry Cohn, who loved to put on Chinese
dinners at a local restaurant as well as entertain the young
baseball players from Taiwan who played in a tournament staged
in Ft. Lauderdale.

*Another chapter, in Montgomery, Alabama, is largely composed
of former service personnel, some of whom served with General
Chennault in China. They have just installed a new chairperson,
Mr. Y. W. Chang.

*Our New York chapter has a mixture of younger and older people
from many cultures. Our chairman, Ed Murphy, helped stage a
front line version of South Pacific while serving in China during
World War II.

*The Boston chapter is headed by Robert Mansfield. An activist
extraordinary, Mansfield tries not to miss a chance to write a letter
in behalf of the cause of freedom and has one of the most eclectic
and wide ranging scrapbooks of replies one may find.
*The Georgia chapters are headed by Penny Rosenkranz, an en-
ergetic Atlantan who is assisted by Rosie Clark, a well-known
local artist. Cord Middleton, long a devoted friend to the Republic

200

of China, oversees the Savannah chapter. Tom Crittenden is in
charge of the Dawson chapter, while John R. Lipscomb heads the
Mount Berry chapter. Georgia Chen and Scott Loo share the helm
in Augusta. Each chapter has its own agenda of programs and
events.

We think FOFC is in many ways typical of America and typical of
the Chinese people. We have many Americans of Chinese ancestry
involved in the work of the chapters. Although most are now citizens
of the United States, they find their Chinese heritage and culture still
draws them to participate in the programs of FOFC.

We believe FOFC has a unique and continuing role to play in
American-East Asian relations. "Tiny" Taiwan is a nation of more
than nineteen million people. Ireland, the Benelux countries, and
Israel each do not match it in population. Beyond that, we believe that
it's not sheer numbers, but the willingness of Americans from all
sections to reach beyond their regional borders to embrace the
transcendent values which draws us all together in a struggle to see
that ultimately democracy prevails.

201

History of the United States- China People's
Friendship Association (USCPFA) of Atlanta

EDWARD S. KREBS'

In February 1 972, three Atlantans who soon afterward would travel
to China, established the United States-China People's Friendship
Association (USCPFA) of Atlanta. The Atlanta group was one of the
first of many chapters of a loosely-federated organization then start-
ing in American cities. In 1974, 350 delegates from thirty-six cities
formed a national organizational structure at a meeting in Los Ange-
les. At both local and national levels, membership reached a high
point in 1978 and has gradually declined since then; at both levels,
however, the organization remains vital.

Throughout its existence the Atlanta USCPFA has maintained its
own strong identity and program. Originally included in the Eastern
region of the national organization, the Atlanta chapter helped to
launch chapters in other cities and towns in the Southeast, and in
1975 Atlanta became the headquarters of a separate Southern re-
gion.

The USCPFA's brief history covers a time of momentous events in
American-East Asian relations. The Atlantans who started their city's
USCPFA chapter made their first China trips in 1972, only weeks
after President Richard Nixon launched a new era in Sino-American
relations with his own visit to the People's Republic. Like the Chi-

*Dr. Krebs, co-president of the Atlanta chapter of the United States-China People's Friendship
Association, lives in Douglasville, Georgia. He received a Ph.D. in modern Chinese history
from the University of Washington in 1977. His dissertation focused on Liu Ssu-Fu, one of
China's most active anarchists. Dr. Krebs has published articles on modern Chinese history
and has taught the subject at several Atlanta-area colleges. This article was written by Dr.
Krebs prior to the events in Beijing of June 4,1 989.

202

nese, USCPFA members regard Nixon's overture to China as one
positive feature of his administration. The Watergate crisis and con-
tinuing involvement in Vietnam shook American national life until
1 975. Then in 1 976 a new series of dramatic developments began in
China. The deaths of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong in 1976 and the
subsequent fall of Mao's heirs-apparent, the "Gang of Four," precipi-
tated an apparent reversal of many basic policies in the People's
Republic.

The history of Atlanta USCPFA reflects the vagaries and ironies of
politics. While many of its early members hoped to spread Maoist
teachings in this country, the group now seeks to welcome Chinese
scholars to Atlanta and to help them understand the United States
and its culture. Initially attractive to student radicals of the late 1960s,
the Association subsequently was composed mostly of middle-aged,
middle-class Atlantans. USCPFA was, in its first few years, viturally
the sole agent for trips to China. USCPFA subsequently became only
one of many opportunities to tour China. Despite these changes, the
Friendship Association has been an unusual organization, bringing
many kinds of people together in a genuinely popular movement that
has offered much more than a chance to study China or to go there.
This essay will survey some of the main themes in the group's
history, attempt to account for its appeal, and explore some of the
ironies that have entered into its life.

Organizations do not emerge from nothing; they depend on re-
sponses to broadly felt needs and on the hard work of organizers
who feel these needs acutely. Perhaps the chief impetus for USCPFA's
establishment was the quarter-century of mutual hostility between
the governments of the United States and China. Long before the
Nixon visit to China in February 1 972, many in academia, journalism,
and government had hoped for an end to the impasse and looked for
some movement in the political sphere. Meanwhile China's revolu-
tion had continued, and by the middle 1 960s had produced the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which at its best appeared as a great
drive for social equality. The youth of China took a direct role in the
attempt to achieve social change, and the dedication of many young
Americans to changing their own society gave them a sense of
solidarity with their Chinese counterparts. The concurrence of "youth
revolution" in China and the United States was a second major

203

feature which gave rise to USCPFA's establishment.

The three Atlantans who launched USCPFA made their China trips
in this environment. Bill Cozzens and Bea Miner had written many
letters to various Chinese agencies asking that they be allowed to
visit China. They learned from a California couple who came to
Atlanta in 1971 to report on their own trip to China that the China
International Travel Service was a useful office to contact.

Bill Cozzens had been a student activist while attending the Uni-
versity of Georgia in the mid 1960s; his interest in China developed
when he took a course on modern East Asia at the University.1 He left
school in 1968 to go to Atlanta to work for the Southern Student
Organizing Committee. In time he took a job as an operating room
attendant at Grady Memorial Hospital; his work in the health care
field gave him a particular interest in observing health care in China.
Meanwhile he met and married Bea Miner, who worked at the
Georgia Mental Retardation Center and was also taking courses in
the Urban Life School at Georgia State University. The couple were
thrilled when, in December 1971, word came from China that they
could come in two weeks. Except for a medical problem that required
immediate attention, they would have made their tour of China before
President Nixon made his. As things worked out, they went in April
and May 1972, just weeks after Nixon's trip; they managed their
expenses by taking a second mortgage on their house.

Bill and Bea had met Hilda Keng during the summer of 1971 as
they prepared themselves for a China trip by studying Chinese. Born
in the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) valley province of Anhui, Hilda had left
China in1947, not realizing it would be a quarter-century before she
returned.2 Hoping to contribute to her people's welfare, Hilda went to
Nashville, where she studied at Scarritt and George Peabody Col-
leges. She came to Atlanta for further work at Emory's Candler
School of Theology, where she earned a divinity degree and became
an ordained Methodist minister. Her work changed from the ministry
to education as in the middle 1960s she became a teacher in the
DeKalb County schools, offering courses in Chinese history and
language at a number of high schools. Hilda retired in 1979. She
became an American citizen and a respected member of Atlanta's
Asian community. Meanwhile most of her family had remained in
China, where vast change had occurred since 1949. Hilda's wishes

204

or a trip to China centered on a desire to see her family again, and to
;ee what had changed in her native land. Her role in the founding
eadership of USCPFA in Atlanta was an extension of her teaching
career. "We had our first meeting in my basement," she says proudly
>f the group's inauguration in February 1972, just at the time of
slixon's trip.3

The name chosen for the group is straightforward, in itself a
statement of the organization's purpose. As best he can recall, Bill
Dozzens believes the name was suggested by that of a similar
>rganization, one of two or three launched before the Atlanta group,
rhe other group called themselves "U.S. -China Friendship Associa-
ion," as do such organizations in many other countries. The Atlanta
ounders decided to insert "People's" in their name, to make it clear
hat this was a grassroots organization.4 The Atlanta chapter thus
:an claim at least a share of the credit for the decision to use this
lame for the national organization in the United States.

The visits to China, coming soon after that first meeting for Bill and
tea, then for Hilda, assured that the Chinese would make their own
>olid contribution to the goal of U.S. -China people's friendship. Eve-
ywhere they visited, the Americans received a warm welcome; Hilda
vas allowed several days for the long-postponed reunion with her
amily. In retrospect, their tours may be seen as prototypes for those
aken by many thousands of Americans who have visited China in
he decade since. Bill and Bea went to five cities Beijing (Peking),
Buangzhou (Canton), Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Xian (Sian) and to
)laces in the countryside near some of these cities. They visited
lealth care facilities, saw the work of "barefoot doctors" (rural para-
nedics), and saw acupuncture used for treatment and as anesthesia,
rhey observed daily activities in schools, factories, and communes.
\ll three returned to Atlanta eager to share their enthusiasm about
Dhina.

Hoping to do just that and to generate interest in USCPFA Bill and
3ea scheduled a press conference upon their return home. When no
)ne came, their friend David Nolan urged them to go to the Journal
and Constitution offices and to radio and television stations to distrib-
jte the statement they had prepared. One result of this episode was
hat Nolan caught the "China bug" from his friends. He had known Bill
since coming to Atlanta from Nashville, working for the Southern

205

Student Organizing Committee; but he'd had only a vague interest ir
China. Quiet but talented and intense, David read some fifty book*
on Chinese history and politics in a few weeks. He also assimilatec
what he read. Soon David was devoting his own energies to USCPFA
too. Cozzens credits Nolan with many of the ideas that were used tc
build the Atlanta group. "I didn't mind getting up in front of a group
and making a fool of myself," Bill says modestly of his own role, "bu
I'd have to give David credit for many of our best ideas."5

Bill and Bea's trip was reported in the Constitution, as was Hilda
Keng's a few weeks later.6 As of 1972, however, the membership
was very small. Most who had joined by that time were younc
"movement" people who attached great importance to China's revo
lution and were particularly attracted to Mao Zedong's revolutionary
ideas. The USCPFA cause was new and less volatile than most tha
had previously undertaken. If ordinary Americans could learn abou
China's achievements and appreciate the ideas behind them, the}
reasoned, soon enough these ordinary Americans would get the
message for their own circumstances. Perhaps subconsciously, man}
of the earliest Atlanta USCPFA members saw this new effort as ar
extension of their earlier activities. From the beginning, the organiz-
ers Bill, Bea, Hilda, and David hoped for a broadly-based mem
bership.

Although USCPFA thus set out to be apolitical, the group die
address one specific issue in American politics. This was the ques
tion of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic; and Richarc
Nixon, with his well-established record for opposing communism
had spoken dramatically to this issue. USCPFA asked of those whe
wished to join only that they accept the "Shanghai communque which
Nixon had signed with Zhou Enlai at the end of his China visit; anc
that they oppose continued American involvement in Vietnam. Al
though the Shanghai communique has been subject to different inter-
pretations by the U.S. and P.R.C. governments, the document basi-
cally stated that the Beijing government was the only legitimate
government of all China, and that Taiwan's future was an interna
Chinese affair. Although hardline conservatives rejected these propo-
sitions, the group had never counted on such support anyway, and ir
a city of Atlanta's size and makeup, USCPFA could still build e
sizeable membership.

206

It is worth noting that the "movement" people might not have been
iterested in USCPFA work if their top priority, anti-Vietnam war
ctivities, had not wound down after 1973. Their early political in-
olvement was a type of experience which would be useful in the new
rganization, USCPFA.

The challenge facing the Atlnata USCPFA was to increase mem-
ership by reaching a broader constituency, capitalizing on a new
ublic interest in China. After its first year the group did this with
jmarkable success. And they achieved success because they did
verything necessary to build an organization. They carried on an
ctive, well-publicized program. They made people feel welcome
nd wanted; they followed up on contacts. Despite failing to show up
>r Bill and Bea's press conference, the Atlanta media soon realized
le USCPFA leaders had become increasingly sophisticated in pub-
sizing their work and in garnering newspaper coverage and radio
nd television appearances when nationally-acclaimed USCPFA
peakers came to Atlanta. They also worked very effectively at less
lamourous forms of publicity. They used public service announce-
lents on the radio and in newspapers and posted xeroxed handbills
i schools, colleges, and any place else they thought people would
ike notice. Some of the members worked for Atlanta's underground
ewspaper, The Great Speckled Bird, which had a broad readership.
J each USCPFA event, sign-up sheets were circulated, producing
ames, addresses, and telephone numbers of potential new mem-
ers. Without the necessary legwork, telephoning, and expression of
ersonal warmth to develop these contacts, the organization would
ave remained small. Volunteers undertood these details with an
nthusiasm and dedication to purpose which had also characterized
leir antiwar activities. USCPFA's early life may be seen as an
xample of grassroots organization-building.

As the group grew, it carried on a wide variety of programs. In the
eginning the humble slide show served the organization well. Bill
nd Bea and Hilda began spreading the word by making themselves
vailable to present their China experience in pictures they had taken
lemselves; many different audiences in Atlanta and in many towns
1 the northern half of Georgia saw these presentations. Recognizing
ie appeal of this kind of program, the group asked all applicants for
. China trip to be prepared to show their slides to others after

207

returning home.

The Atlanta group also drew on the resources of the growing
national USCPFA organization and its friends and supporters for
attractive programs. A number of China experts supported the
USCPFA movement through national speaking tours. William Hin-
ton, a Pennsylvanian who had gone to China following World War II
to assist in rebuilding agriculture and then returned many times as an
advisor, came to Atlanta in the spring of 1973. Widely known for his
book Fanshen about the post-1949 transformation of one rural area
in Shanxi province, Hinton addressed large and varied audiences in
three appearances in Atlanta. Other out-of-town speakers discussed
law, health care, and the status of women in China. Atlanta audi-
ences were intrigued with Americans who had visited China, or lived
there, during those long years when many Americans had been
conditioned to see China as a place of "deep red darkness."

The national USCPFA network also circulated films to local groups,
and the Atlanta chapter used these to attract interest. China films
showed at the "Film Forum" in Ansley Mall. Owner George Ellis, long
active in the arts in Atlanta (and better known to vintage television
fans in the area as "Bestoink Dooley," the character he created),
made his theater available to the Friendship Association, requiring
only that the group pay his projectionist the union wage. Large
crowds gathered at the "Film Forum" to learn about developments in
China.

USCPFA organized short courses to acquaint new members with
Chinese history and current events. Hilda Keng was one of the
regular instructors, anxious to teach her fellow Atlantans about China.

Publication of a newsletter became one of the Association's earli-
est activities. Sales revenue from a newsletter might at least partially
alleviate the orgainization's chronic funding difficulties. Usually de-
voted to a single topic, issues of the newsletter discussed the same
themes in print as were covered by speakers or films. The newsletter
carried only a nominal charge, and again the group found itself giving
away more than it was taking in. Each issue also contained an appeal
to interested people to join USCPFA at a cost of five dollars. In time,
the growth of membership eased the financial problem. Most of all,
however, this organization thrived on the enthusiasm of its members.

The Atlanta USCPFA established contacts throughout the South-

208

ast. A classified ad in The Great Speckled Bird brought inquiries
om all over the Southeast and from other sections of the country as
'ell. A number of letters came from men serving time in prison, who
ften asked for all the free literature on China the group could send.7
nother of the group's devoted members, Becky Hamilton, wrote
lost of the warm responses to these lettes. Devotion to the work
ould generate devotion to another of the group's members; Becky
let David Nolan through USCPFA work and in due course they were
larried.

By about the middle of 1 974, all the exposure and hard work began
) reap returns. Although "movement" people remained an important
lement, the Atlanta chapter's membership was beginning to reflect
3 outreach into the larger community. Among the first to join USCPFA
om this broader constituency were Bill and Camille Funk, formerly
lissionaries in Sarawak, where they had worked with many over-
9as Chinese who had left China when the Communist government
ame to power in 1949.8 Back in the Atlanta area, Bill taught history at
ecatur High School. The Funks began to wonder whether the
egative views they had heard from anti-communist Chinese in
arawak represented the whole story. USCPFA offered information
bout China and a chance to go there, which both Bill and Camille
oped to do. After some hesitancy they decided to join, and after
lining they worked hard for the organization. They helped to attract
udiences who would come to hear "former missionaries," as the
unks were often billed, but never to hear "young radicals." Both
ecame leaders in the Atlanta group. Bill served as president and as

regional representative on the national steering committee.

As people of different backgrounds began to join, a healthy sym-
iosis developed between the younger "old" USCPFA members and
le older "new" members. This interaction became one of the group's
lost appealing qualities and a major cause of its continued growth.
,s they worked together, the membership saw something unusual
nd extremely pleasant happening; they liked each other, and each
earned that the others genuinely cared about other human beings. It
'as the sort of thing that happens all too rarely in the lives of
rganizations.

Camille Funk was one of two Atlantans selected for the first
ISCPFA-sponsored China tour. She was in China in September

209

1 974, just at the time the national USCPFA was formally organized at
the Los Angeles convention. Tours became a major attraction for
USCPFA. Local chapters were allotted places on tours organized by
the regional offices of the organization. Even though individuals had
to pay their own expenses, only a small number could be accommo-
dated. Local chapters prepared applicants for trips through their
study programs and then rigorously selected those judged best able
to profit themselves and the organization with a trip. The selections
were forwarded to the Chinese government for approval of visas.
After several trips, the Atlanta USCPFA realized that the Chinese
had not rejected a single applicant whom they had recommended.
Until normalization of relations in 1979 broadened the options for
travel to China, USCPFA was virtually the only way for most Ameri-
cans to get a trip. Thus Atlanta and other local chapters now also
attracted people who had hoped, sometime in their lives, to see the
Great Wall or the Ming Tombs, plus those who simply loved to travel.
To the membership now came people whose chief common trait was
an adventurous spirit and a desire to be selected for the China trips.

One of these adventurous types was Freddye Henderson, a black
woman who operated a travel agency in Atlanta. Partly because of
her own interest but also because USCPFA found few others in
Atlanta willing to set up trips to China, Henderson's agency arranged
the group's tours for some time. She also had taken a China tour
herself, in 1973, traveling on Ethiopian Airlines' first flight from Addis
Ababa to Beijing.9 Through this and other associations, USCPFA
developed links with Atlanta's black community. James Bond, then a
member of the Atlanta City Council, went on a USCPFA tour and
later served as a tour leader.10

Besides trips for paying customers, USCPFA operated member-
ship tours, offering greatly reduced rates to those who had worked
diligently for the organization. These tours helped to maintain solidar-
ity for the core of "movement" people, still a vital element in the
membership. Emulating the Chinese style they admired, they could
sacrifice to see one of their own get a trip and trust that, in time, their
own turn would come.

For these and other admirers of Mao Zedong, 1 976 was a disheart-
ening year. The death of Zhou Enlai in January removed a beloved
leader, the source of stability in what had been a turbulent decade.

210

iu De, builder of the Red Army, died the following July. The great
angshan earthquake at the end of July seemed a portent of another
jriod of momentous change. Bill Cozzens and twenty others in a
Duthern Region tour group were in Beijing when the 'quake' hit. Bill
)ted that the Chinese handled the crisis coolly and efficiently,
oviding all possible assistance to the affected area, some ninety
iles southeast of Beijing.11 Mao had been failing for many months;
} died in September. His passing set off political rumblings that
>on produced a change of course in national policy. Although it
)peared that Mao's widow, Jiang Qing, and associates who shared
jr ultra-left views would accede to leadership, within a month this
)ang of Four" had been arrested, charged with treason, and made
rgets of a campaign to fix blame for China's difficulties in economic
welopment. Within a year after Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping emerged
ice again and began to lay out a new world. This reversal greatly
irprised many USCPFA members who had come to know the China
the Cultural Revolution. Deng's new policies were bound to cause
percussions in USCPFA. because many of its members were so
tracted to Maoist ideals. At the local level in Atlanta, however, the
llout was limited, and the organization was not affected very directly
immediately.12 The chapter continued its broad outreach activities,
ich as China tours and participation in the 1976 Piedmont Arts
jstival.

The Atlanta group's success at recruiting broadly seems most re-
>onsible for the mild reaction locally. Much more likely to be simply
dent travelers than ardent Maoists, those who had joined the
Janta chapter during the preceding two or three years did not react
rongly to the reversal of policy. While concerned about the welfare
the Chinese people, most in the Atlanta group were prepared to
ke China on its own terms, even though those terms might change.
At the national USCPFA level there were significant reactions to
hina's new course; these came to a head in the 1978 national
invention at San Francisco. A small but insistent group in USCPFA's
ctreme left wing urged that the organization be disbanded as a
sponse to Deng Xiaoping's policies. The episode ended with this
oup walking out of the meeting and the organization, having failed
convince others of their proposal's merit.13
The 1977 national meeting, held in Atlanta, had produced another

211

debate directly involving David Nolan, who for the previous few years
had played an important role in the national leadership.14 These
discussions centered not on Chinese policies but on USCPFA's
future. David favored the continual steady growth of a broadly-based
organization; he was particularly concerned about the role of the
magazine, New China, that USCPFA had begun to publish. The
magazine was excellent but expensive to produce; Nolan felt that
available funds should be used for more modest but nonetheless
informative publications. He failed to carry a majority on these ques-
tions, but he was less upset at losing on the issues than over what he
considered unfair tactics which his opposition had used. Reflecting
on the affair after his return home, David decided to withdraw from
USCPFA activity. The Atlanta group lost one of its most capable
leaders as a result.15

In December 1978 President Jimmy Carter announced that full
normalization of relations between the United States and China
would commence on January 1 , 1 979. Carter was no doubt sensitive
to the desires of American banks and corporations who believed that
normalization would give U.S. foreign trade a much-needed short-in-
the-arm. He was probably influenced by the view that China could
serve as a potential counterweight to the Soviet Union. Although the
Carter administration had prepared for normalization during the pre-
vious several months, it still caught many people, including USCPFA
members, by surprise. Normalization fulfilled the chief objective of
the Shanghai communique, which by this time was almost seven
years old. Most USCPFA members had grown accustomed to tem-
porizing statements from American leaders and were prepared to
wait years for normalization. In Atlanta as throughout the country,
USCPFA hailed the announcement with celebrations.

Dramatic moments followed quickly one after another at this time,
climaxing in Deng Xiaoping's visit to the United States in late January
and early February 1979. Deng made Atlanta his first stop after the
usual formalities in Washington. For Atlantans, the visit was espe-
cially welcome. The timing of his visit nearly coincided with Coca-
Cola's being accepted as the major foreign soft drink manufacturer in
China. The Atlanta USCPFA had a minor role in local preparations
for Deng's visit to the city, and members attended the banquet that
marked the occasion. When Deng visited Martin Luther King, Jr.'s

212

grave, a contigent of USCPFA members were present, carrying a
small sign to identify themselves. One of Deng's aides noted the
group's presence, and the Vice-Premier greeted them with a wave
and a broad smile.16

Strangely, it would seem, normalization had a more adverse effect
on the Atlanta USCPFA than had the momentous events of 1976 in
China. The goal that had absorbed USCPFA since its beginning had
been achieved. While the membership in Atlanta and elsewhere
were pleased to see China getting so much attention, they were at a
loss about what to do next. A few days' front-page coverage of Deng
Xiaoping's visit in American newspapers had done more to publicize
China than had years of patient work. Business people, bankers, and
travel agents flocked to get into the China market, which again, as at
other periods in the past, seemed to them a bonanza waiting to be
worked. Perhaps the experienced members of the Association real-
ized at the time that a new phase of activity would become apparent
when this latest dramatic moment passed.

Since normalization, many of the Atlanta USCPFA's earliest mem-
bers have drifted away. Some "movement" people had devoted years
to the group, and were ready to move on to some other project; the
demands of family life, or other changes that come with the passage
of years, have altered their priorities or their use of time. Bea Miner
continued to serve the Southern Region USCPFA staff as coordina-
tor of tours. Bill Cozzens remained active in the Atlanta chapter,
pleased to see it thriving even though the numbers are smaller. After
a high point approaching three hundred in the 1970s, the member-
ship stabilized at about ninety.

The post-normalization period has indeed presented new work, of
the sort described in the opening paragraph of USCPFA's "State-
ment of Principles" (which has remained the same since 1972): "Our
goal is to build active and lasting friendships between people of the
United States and the people of China."17 A major impact of normali-
zation, along with China's thrust for modernization and shortage of
university facilities in China, was the arrival of a number of Chinese
scholars to the Atlanta area. By 1989 there were some fifty Chinese
scholars engaged in Georgia in individualized programs of study or
research, with the largest numbers at Georgia Institute of Technology
and at the center for Disease Control. Their presence gave USCPFA

213

members the opportunity to reciprocate the warm welcome they
received when they visited China and to address the organization's
essential purpose, that of building friendship. Thus, in addition to
other ongoing aspects of its program China tours, informational
and educational programs, reports by members on their trips to new
areas of China now open to travel, including Tibet the Atlanta group
has been engaged in the project of welcoming the Chinese scholars,

This friendship activity takes several forms. Chinese scholars at-
tend meetings of USCPFA. There are some group activities, such as
visits to industrial plants in the Atlanta area. Most rewarding, to those
who have become involved in it, is a "one-on-one" program, in which
USCPFA members develop individual friendships with the scholars.
These personal exchanges provide the Chinese a chance to improve
their conversational English and to ask questions about American
life. For those who serve as hosts, the process is not just one-way;
they continue to learn about China by asking questions themselves.
Herb and Audrey Burt, a retired couple who have worked in the "one-
on-one" program for some time, find it extrememly valuable. "This
gives us a chance to know the Chinese personally," says Herb, "and
after a while, you realize that the Chinese are as different from each
other as we Americans are."18 Audrey Burt reports an episode that
gets to the essence of mutual understanding. One of the Chinese
scholars was near the end of his two-year stay at Georgia Tech.
Shortly before he left, he asked a question he had long wanted to
ask, but had not for fear of hurting someone's feelings: "These
animals alligators and other things that people wear on their
clothes. What do they mean? Do these people belong to some sort of
club?" The question and perhaps the answer too suggest the
dimensions and possibilities of this project. Like other aspects of
USCPFA's work, it is a noble venture, down-to-earth in nature, and
never far from an interesting surprise.

International friendship can be both elevating and frustrating to
those who attempt it. Most people in most nations move beyond the
boundaries of their daily lives only involuntarily, for work or for war.
Those who seek new experiences in travel and international friend-
ship are, more often than not, the idealists among the educated.
From time to time the idea of international friendship gains broad
appeal, as among members of religious groups or political move-

214

merits who see themselves as members of communities without
national boundaries. USCPFA can be seen as similar to such move-
ments, arising at a time when Americans had grown skeptical of
established institutions. It attracted the devoted service of young
educated idealists. That the organization struck a responsive chord
suggests that the organizers' skepticism was shared by many in the
broader community they sought to reach. Although idealism has
been important in USCPFA, its goals are relatively modest and
realistic; members learn through travel and personal contacts, with-
out setting nationality aside.

As USCPFA's experience has shown, much that is positive can be
achieved by this approach. One wonders how the course of this
country's relations with Iran might have been different in recent
years, had a U.S. -Iran People's Friendship Association been active
for a decade before Iran's revolution. Obviously the existence of
USCPFA is no guarantee that equally distressing events will not
befall American-Chinese relations; but USCPFA's practical approach
to international relations seems an excellent way to avoid such
disasters and to mitigate them should they occur.

In its years of activity, USCPFA's work has been fruitful, and all
indications are that it will continue this way for years to come.
Furthermore, the Atlanta USCPFA enterprise might point to a time
when people everywhere will question government-fostered images
of other nations, and reserve the right of their own judgment.

NOTES

I thank those in the Atlanta USCPFA for their contributions to this essay; without such
cooperation, a project in contemporary history would be impossible. Bill Cozzens has talked
extensively with me and has graciously allowed me the use of his files, which cover most of
the decade. I am also grateful for interviews with Hilda Keng, Bill and Camille Funk, Herb
and Audrey Burt, Jerry Minear, Kai Yong (1983 president), Margareta Davis, and Paul
Hagan.

Those who may wish to contact the U.S. -China People's Friendship Association may
communicate with the USCPFA Regional Office, Suite 1026, 100 Edgewood Avenue, S.E.,
Atlanta, Georgia 30303.

Interviews are cited by last name and date, except that first names are added to
distinguish between spouses.
1Bill Cozzens 1/29/83.
2Keng 1/25/83.
3 Ibid.

4Bill Cozzens 2/21/83.
5Bill Cozzens 1/29/83.

215

6The Atlanta Constitution, 6/1 2/72 and 8/1 0/72, respectively, for the Cozzens-Miner trip and

the Keng trip.

7Bill Cozzens' USCPFA correspondence file.
8Bill Funk 1/18/83; Camille Funk 2/1 5/83.
9Shannon, Margaret, "Friends of the People's Republic," The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

Magazine (Sunday), 2/29/76. This is a well researched and lucid account of the Atlanta

USPCFA through early 1976.
'lbid.

11 Atlanta Constitution 8/2/76.
12Bill Cozzens 1/29/83.
13/b/d.
'"Shannon, "Friends of the People's Republic." One photograph accompanying Shannon's

article shows Nolan standing behind Deng Xiaoping and William Hinton, taken when Deng

held an impromptu meeting to welcome a USCPFA delegation.
15Bill Cozzens 1/29/83 and 2/21/83.
16Bill Cozzens 1/29/83.
17This statement appeared in USCPFA's first printed circulars, and is repeated in the current

by-laws.
18Herb Burt 2/1 1/83.

216

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Studies

in

Humanistic

Psychology

Christopher M. Aanstoos

editor

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE
STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Volume XXIX June 1991

STUDIES IN HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

by Christopher M. Aanstoos (Volume Editor)

Volume 29 of West Georgia College Studies in the Social Sciences
Francis P. Conner (Series Editor)

Copyright 1991 by:
West Georgia College
Carrollton,GA30118

ISSN 0081-8682

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form except for brief quotation in a review or professional work
without permission from the publishers.

The editor and publisher wish to thank Swets & Zeitlinger B. V. (Lisse,
The Netherlands) for their permission to reprint the chapter by Mike
Arons, "Creativity and the Methodological Debate: AMytho-Historical
Reflection." This chapter originally appeared in their bookAdvances in
Qualitative Psychology: Themes and Variations ( 1987 by Swets &
Zeitlinger, B.V.)

Printed in the United States of America

To my colleagues

the West Georgia psychology community

my fellow travelers on this infinite adventure of discovery

I appreciatively dedicate this volume

in the hope that our fragile and precious ensemble

will continue to play inspiring music together

The photograph on the cover of this volume depicts the doors known
as The Gates of Paradise, an entrance to the Baptistery of San Giovanni
in Florence, Italy. The sculpting on these doors, made in the early
Renaissance by Lorenzo Ghiberti, a leading humanist artist, offered a
revolutionary new vision in two respects. First, through the use of
innovative techniques in gradation of relief, a sense of perspective is
achieved, so that the standpoint of the beholder is implicated, thus
achieving in bronze casting the effect newly developed by Renaissance
painters. Furthermore, what the viewer is invited to stand in relation to
is also unprecedented. In contrast to previous pictorial relief work, in
which solitary figures were immersed in a hazy and vague atmosphere,
an undefined and indefinable space, the panels portrayed not merely
isolated figures but complete situations, including their background.
The narrative complexity of each panel was far more comprehensive
and coherent than anything previously envisaged. In these ways, Renais-
sance art disclosed the humanistic conception of people existing within
the world of their involvements, rather than as detached figures lacking
any intrinsic relatedness. Most of all, it is this holistic understanding that
infuses contemporary humanistic psychology's alternative to the
elementistic approach of experimental psychology.

STUDIES IN HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY
Christopher M. Aanstoos Editor

CONTENTS

Foreword

Stanley Krippner vi

Preface: The Meaning of Humanistic Psychology

Christopher M. Aanstoos 1

Creativity and the Methodological Debate:
A Mytho-Historical Reflection

MikeArons 12

Knowing the Other in Self Psychology: A Comparative
Dialogue between Heinz Kohut and Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Robert J. Masek 33

The Luminous Diamond of Knowing

KaisaPuhakka 48

Understanding Laing's Understanding of the Family
Before the Family Was Understood

Donadrian L. Rice 62

Bedtime Stories: Engendering Sex through Narrative

Kareen Ror Matone 82

Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

Christopher M. Aanstoos 94

Sharing Secrets: Where Education and Psychotherapy Meet

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 112

Visionary Experience: A Preliminary Typology

Raymond Moody 128

Malignant Currency: The Psychosocial Aftershocks of the
Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage in the Lived World of Seward

Richard Alapack . . . . ; 134

The Playing Field Is the Laboratory: An Experiential
Approach to Sport Psychology

James J. Barrell and Donald C. Medeiros 153

Appendix: The West Georgia College Psychology Program

Christopher M. Aanstoos 163

Foreword

Humanistic psychology developed as a number of scholars in the
social sciences, behavioral sciences, and the humanities began to express
their dissatisfaction with behaviorism's mechanistic and atomistic view
of human nature, as well as psychoanalysis' emphasis on pathological
models of human behavior. The humanistic psychologists drew upon a
long tradition linking psychology with the humanities and wrote elo-
quently on the necessity to study human beings and to be of service
to them from a more holistic perspective. The movement was sparked
by many key psychologists of the period, including Henry Murray, Carl
Rogers, Charlotte Buhler, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Gordon
Allport (who first used the term "humanistic psychology").

The founding members of the Association for Humanistic Psychol-
ogy and, later, Division 32 of the American Psychological Association,
included psychologists sympathetic to the orientation of European
phenomenologists, of existential philosophers, and of Gestalt
psychologists. They were also influenced by European theorists of
Geisteswissenschaften, by the organismic psychology of Kurt Goldstein,
and by personality theorists who advocated an active and interactive
self. Yet they found a common ground in their dissatisfaction with the
domineering presence of behaviorism and psychoanalysis in mid-cen-
tury American psychology and psychotherapy.

Where behaviorism emphasized observable behavior and applied
technology, humanistic psychology focused upon (1) the human beings
who behave (behavior is not excluded, but human beings are not
reduced to their behaviors), (2) a human science that adapts the method

VI

to the subject matter rather than the reverse, and (3) a praxis or
applications that call for the real-world extension (both technological
and non-technological) of the conceptual structures created by
humanistic theory. Where psychoanalysis accentuated unconscious
motivation and the psychopathology of everyday life, humanistic
psychology insisted that, although dysfunctional activity and the uncon-
scious were certainly worthy of study, (1) human beings had the capacity
to display intentionality in their actions, (2) more was to be learned from
investigating healthy persons than those whose growth had been blocked
or thwarted, and (3) human potentials such as creativity and self-ac-
tualization were part of the human birthright.

This was the agenda brought to West Georgia College by Mike
Arons in 1968 when he was invited to establish a humanistically oriented
psychology program. Traditional psychological courses were not jet-
tisoned because the humanistic perspective has always seen itself as
encompassing rather than replacing previous schools and models. How-
ever, new courses were added, including pioneering offerings in Eastern
psychology and the psychology of women. The cultural and historical
context of human lives was examined both in new courses and in several
of the theses written as part of the department's Masters of Arts
program.

I was one of the first guest speakers to be invited to present
colloquia in the new program, and prepared lectures on ten different
topics. This tour deforce inspired a colleague of mine, Robert Morris,
to present colloquia on eleven topics the following year! Neither of us
have repeated this marathon, observing that there is now enough talent
at West Georgia College so that bravura performances from outsiders
are no longer necessary. Nevertheless, I have continued to speak at
West Georgia each year, in the process learning as much as I have
taught.

This volume, Studies in Humanistic Psychology, represents the
depth and the range of the department's offerings at West Georgia. The
European contributions to humanistic psychology are reflected in the
articles about Maurice Merleau-Ponty and R. D. Laing. The emphasis
upon human potentials is exemplified in the discussions of creativity and
knowing. The unique theoretical contributions of humanistic psychol-
ogy emerge in the chapters about embodiment and visionary ex-
perience, while research models are apparent in the discourses on
narrative and comparative dialogue. Applications of humanistic
psychology are portrayed in the essays on psychotherapy, education, and
sport psychology. Humanistic psychology's commitment to social bet-

VII

terment is evident in a report on the psychosocial aftershocks of an
ecological disaster.

There is a great diversity in humanistic psychology a diversity so
great that I prefer the term "humanistic psychologies" to describe the
movement. Unlike behaviorism and psychoanalysis, no single figure has
dominated the field. However, the basic unity of the movement is
reflected in Charlotte Buhler's definition of humanistic psychology as
"the scientific study of behavior, experience, and intentionality." this is
the perspective that Buhler, Allport, Maslow, May, Rogers and the
others brought to psychology, and is the perspective that readers will
find so well articulated in this book.

STANLEY KRIPPNER

Saybrook Institute

San Francisco

June 1991

PREFACE

The Meaning of Humanistic Psychology

Christopher M. Aanstoos

This volume offers a collection of essays by the faculty of the
Psychology Department at West Georgia College. For a quarter cen-
tury, that department has sustained a graduate program in humanistic
psychology. (The appendix at the end of this volume provides an
overview of that program.) While being infused by many forms of
post-positivistic psychology including phenomenological, existential,
hermeneutic, transpersonal, experiential, Oriental, systemic, percep-
tual, and postmodern approaches the department has embraced the
term "humanistic" as the most generally apt way of labeling its own
foundations. In doing so, it identifies with the larger movement of
humanistic psychology that has pulsed through America for the past
three decades (which Stanley Krippner summarized so well in the
Foreword to this volume). However, as Krippner also pointed out, this
identification is not with anything static, nor with the doctrine of any
particular founder. Rather, the West Georgia program has been notably
innovative, its own plethora of intellectual sources providing rich and
original syntheses. Exemplifying that tendency, the following "studies
in humanistic psychology" may just as well be introduced instead as
"current developments in..." or "contemporary issues in..." humanistic
psychology.

2 The Meaning of Humanistic Psychology

Such scholarship is particularly important now, as humanistic
psychology navigates the ever challenging transition from the genera-
tion of its founders to the following generation. Especially at such a
time, it is appropriate to ask just what the term "humanistic" means at
all, and to appreciate the significance of a wing of psychologists in late
twentieth century America describing themselves as "humanistic." Ini-
tially, the very phrase "humanistic psychology" itself seems very odd,
since the modifier "humanistic" appears at first superfluously redundant
when applied to the term "psychology." Isn't psychology, after all,
necessarily concerned with what is specifically "human" as its own most
central concern? It is of course true that most psychologists do not
actually focus on human beings as their subject matter all, choosing
instead to devote their careers to the study of certain behaviors of
confined rats or pigeons, or to the development of computer models.
Even most psychological research that uses human beings does so by
studying them in artificial laboratory conditions. Despite this curious
shift, it is nevertheless true that even these psychologists would affirm
psychology's central concern with the human by the very way they justify
their studies. The reason given for studying rats, pigeons or computers
is ultimately to augment our understanding of the human. Though they
have chosen to study the human obliquely, by means of something that
is not human, or in contexts detached from ordinary human existence,
nevertheless, they are the first to insist that their research is uncovering
something about the human as well, and for that very reason is worth
supporting.

One wonders, then, if all psychologists no matter how far
removed they are from the human in their research work affirm that
their ultimate interest is the human, why would anyone ever even
conceive of the modifier "humanistic" for the discipline of psychology?
Wouldn't the modifier be as superfluous as the term "cash" in the phrase
"cash money"? Nevertheless, the curious historical fact remains that,
beginning in the 1960's, one branch of psychologists adopted such a
label, in order to distinguish themselves from psychology as it had been
traditionally established. Even more curious has been the reaction of
the rest of psychology to that development. It would seem psychologists
who adopt an indirect approach to the study of the human risk the grave
danger of missing the very phenomenon they are most centrally inter-
ested in discovering the human. Indeed, only by somehow anchoring
its findings about the nonhuman in terms of the human could an indirect
psychology determine whether its findings have any significance for
understanding the human. At the very least, then, it would seem that

Christopher M. Aanstoos 3

this indirect psychology would be the one in need of justifying its claims
to support. And it would seem that it could do so most definitively only
by reference to the findings of a genuinely humanistic psychology.

Regrettably, this recognition of the primacy of humanistic psycho-
logy has not happened. Instead, mainstream psychology for the most
part remains remarkably unconcerned by that perspective at all. Indeed,
psychology's establishment actually resisted the inclusion of humanistic
psychology in its grants, dissertations, textbooks, publications, curri-
culum, licensing examinations and accreditation standards. Traditional
psychology largely remains so impervious to the appellation "humanis-
tic" that it knows almost nothing about humanistic psychology and most
of what it does know are wild misunderstandings. Its introductory
textbooks, for example, whose stated aim is to provide a general survey
of the discipline, offer if anything only the most limited and
caricatured versions of humanistic psychology (see Churchill, 1988;
Henley & Faulkner, 1989, for critiques of these presentations).

Evidently, the modifier "humanistic" is far from superfluous. In-
deed, it now appears instead to represent the most divisive split in all of
psychology. But how can this be? How can the term "humanistic" be the
basis for internecine conflict in psychology, the very field that proclaims
as its mission the discovery of the vicissitudes of being human?

Eschewing the term "humanistic," traditional psychology instead
continued to define itself as a positivistic science modeled after the
sciences of nature. Within the confines of that identity, psychology's
basic premise and goal is that psychological life presupposed as
mechanistic be eventually subjected to prediction and control. To
more fully appreciate the alternative mission of humanistic psychology
we should first reflect on its historical foundations and the relation
between the humanistic approach with the natural science approach
that has guided mainstream psychology.

Some writers consider humanistic psychology to be rooted in the
same traditions that bore natural scientific psychology, namely moder-
nity; and hence essentially linked with the fate of mainstream psycho-
logy "as two sides of the modern coin" (Kvale, 1990, p. 45). From his
postmodern perspective, Kvale sees that fate to be its increasing ir-
relevance to our contemporary situation. Certainly it is tempting to read
humanistic psychology's concern for the individual self as indicative of
this modernistic lineage. However, that reading fails to take into ac-
count an older ancestor, namely the humanism of the Renaissance.
While many analysts date the advent of modernity with the Renaissance
(Jencks, 1986; McKnight, 1989), and thereby fail to distinguish between

4 The Meaning of Humanistic Psychology

these two currents, Toulmin's (1990) analysis decisively corrects this
view. He sees the seventeenth century's pursuit of strict rationality and
its quest for certainty to be the origins of modernity, but points out that
this project was a turn away from the Renaissance humanism that had
immediately preceded it. The concerns of the Renaissance humanists
for complexity, ambiguity, and a tolerance of diversity were set aside as
the war-torn, crisis-ridden Europe of the 1600's sought to renounce
ambiguity and embrace certitude, at all costs. Whereas the Renaissance
humanists were interested in the oral, the particular, the local, the
timely, the modern era valued the written, the universal, the general,
and the timeless. As Toulmin summarizes, "the permanent was in, the
transitory was out" (1990, p. 34). Toulmin's work provides a crucial
understanding by which to differentiate the humanism of the Renais-
sance from the rationalism of modernity, and so avoid the fallacy of
depicting humanism as rooted in modernity. On the contrary, modernity
over-rode humanism, and suppressed its impact on culture. In the
process, Renaissance humanism's "insistence on the value and cen-
trality of human experience" (Bullock, 1985, p. 47) was replaced by
positivistic science's reductionistic abstractions and objectifications of
the human experience.

On the basis of this key distinction between these traditions, it is
evident that unlike humanism's Renaissance roots traditional
psychology is a child of modernity. As such, it becomes more clear why
its allegiance is not fundamentally to "the value and centrality of human
experience." Its quest for legitimation has depended upon its emulation
of modernity's proudest achievement: the development of natural sci-
ence. This imitation can be seen already underway as long ago as 1650
with Hobbes (1650/1964), whose formative conception of the contiguity
of ideas provided the foundation for associationistic psychology. Hob-
bes was deeply influenced by the new empirical natural science being
promulgated by Galileo. Following a visit to Galileo, Hobbes "became
fascinated with the concept of motion as a powerful explanatory prin-
ciple not only of the workings of the physical world but also of the mind"
(Mandler & Mandler, 1964, p. 14). Specifically, "what excited Hobbes
was the possibility of deducing new consequences from the laws of
inertia to spheres in which it had not yet been applied" (Brett, 1962, pp.
380-381). Next, Hume, in 1739, was also much influenced by the physics
by then Newtonian of his time. He compared the association of
ideas to natural laws, declaring that "here is a kind of attraction which
in the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in
the natural" (Hume, 1739/1978, p. 12). Shortly afterwards, David

Christopher M. Aanstoos 5

Hartley, in 1749, self-consciously borrowed foundational concepts from
Newtonian physics also in his refinements of the doctrine of the associa-
tion of ideas. He depicted the analysis of "complex ideas... into their
simple compounding parts, i.e., into the simple ideas of sensation of
which they consist" as being "greatly analogous to... resolving the color
of the sun's light, or natural bodies, into their primary constituent ones"
(Hartley, 1749/1964, p. 83). Next, James Mill, in 1829, described cogni-
tion as a "mental mechanics" in which the contents of the mind are
combined according to the laws of mechanics (Mill, 1829/1967).

By the time Wundt arrived on the scene to formally consecrate
psychology as a natural science in the 1870's, using chemistry's table of
elements as the model for his goal of tabulating the elements of the
mind, psychology had already been very deliberately borrowing its basic
conceptions from the natural sciences for more than two centuries.
Therefore, one cannot argue, as some have tried (Skinner, 1971), that
psychology's own development was retarded by its lack of a scientific
foundation for so long. Rather, it must be considered that these long-
standing natural science foundations may be responsible for psycho-
logy's impaired development. That this obvious retardation should be
due to its imitation of the natural sciences at first seems strange, since
those sciences were enjoying tremendous accomplishments, most clear-
ly manifested in their attainment of an accelerating mastery of ever
greater technological power over nature, evident by the beginning of
the twentieth century.

Certainly one would think that these stunning achievements would
insulate the model of the natural sciences from any possible critique.
Nevertheless, Edmund Husserl, in the 1930's, intrepidly announced that
Western science in general was in a state of crisis (Husserl, 1936/1970,
pp. 3-4). By means of his appraisal, the basis of psychology's own
deficiency can be made manifest. The crisis of which Husserl spoke was
not at the level of practical successes. Rather, it was a crisis of what
science meant and could mean for human existence. Specifically, the
crisis was the exclusiveness with which the worldview of modernity had
let itself become totalized by the attitude of the natural sciences. As
Husserl (1936/1970, pp. 6-7) noted, "scientific objective truth is ex-
clusively a matter of establishing what the world, the physical as well as
the spiritual world, is in fact." With that totalization, as Husserl noted,
"merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people," and so
questions about that which is most specifically human, all questions
termed "ultimate and highest" become "excluded questions" (Husserl,
1936/1970, p. 9). Husserl lists as excluded questions those concerned

6 The Meaning of Humanistic Psychology

with "genuine values... ethical action... and freedom." But can the world,
and human existence in it, truthfully have a meaning if the sciences
recognize as true only what is objectively established in this fashion?
What would become of human presence in such an exclusionary enter-
prise? Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968, pp. 14-15) provides this sharply
satirical sketch of its fate:

[for science] the true is the objective, is what I have succeeded in
determining by measurement, or more generally by the operations
that are authorized by the variables... I have defined relative to an
order of facts. Such determinations owe nothing to our contact with
the things: they express an effort of approximation that would have
no meaning with regard to the lived experience... Thus science
began by excluding all the predicates that come to the things from
our encounter with them. The exclusion is however only provi-
sional: when it will have learned to invest it, science will little by
little reintroduce what it first put aside as subjective; but it will
integrate it as a particular case of the... objects that define the world
for science. Then the world will close in over itself, and... we will
have become parts or moments of the Great Object.

Precisely because of the technological success of the natural scien-
ces, Husserl recognized how modernity became "blinded by the pros-
perity they produced" (p. 6) with the consequent "indifferent turning
away from the questions which are decisive for a genuine humanity,"
from those crucial and most burning "questions of the meaning or
meaninglessness of the whole of this human existence" (p. 6). The
consequence of totalizing this scientific exclusivity is the loss of the
meaning of human existence, since science, as merely fact-centered, fails
to address the question of meaning, and thereby promotes the belief in
its reducibility or unreality. In other words, what is most immediately
given in our spontaneous experience of a thing that it presents itself
as meaningful ceases to be a focus for investigation. That meaning-
fulness is instead presumed to be a deterministically produced artefact
of an underlying causal matrix. Along with this triumph of a determinis-
tic viewpoint, warns Husserl, comes the "loss of faith in man's freedom."
Such a collapse cuts right to the core of the human capacity for selfhood
which, as Husserl shows, is not an object, residing in itself, but an event:

If man loses this faith, it means nothing less than the loss of faith
"in himself," in his own true being. This true being is not something
he always already has, with the self-evidence of the "I am," but
something he only has and can have in the form of the struggle for

Christopher M. Aanstoos 7

his truth, the struggle to make himself true. (Husserl, 1936/1970, p.
13)

It would seem, as it did to Husserl, that psychology should be the
key discipline to withstand and counterbalance this erosion of the very
meaningfulness by which we are fully human. It should be psychology's
task, as the science of human existence, to explicate the newly enigmatic
residue of subjectivity left in the wake of this exclusivity. Rather than
accepting that mission, however, traditional psychology eagerly sought
to enact its self-declared status as an empirical science of facts, a
positivistic science of mechanistic determinism, a psycho-physics, a
physiological psychology. Psychology, of course, has not yet developed
any degree of technological mastery over its own dominion comparable
to that achieved by the natural sciences. But that lacunae was self-ex-
cused by the complaint that it was much more difficult to achieve such
a technology in its field. So many "variables" keep "intervening" in its
experimental attempts to control human being, thereby limiting the
scope of any successes to highly artificial laboratory conditions.

Despite its obvious failure to imitate the achievements of the
natural sciences, psychology clings nevertheless to its tattered claim of
membership in that club. Its justification for such continued regard is its
insistence on the exclusive employment of a tightly rigorous scientific
methodology. By at least acting just like an empirical science of facts,
traditional psychology claims to be entitled to boast of someday achiev-
ing control over human existence. Dehydrated by the hegemony of a dry
as dust empiricism, psychology has devoted itself to an approach so
inhuman that caged, starved, mutated rats have become its primary
subject matter. A penetrating look at this peculiar fascination of psycho-
logy will reveal how that dream of domination over the rat has been the
exemplary ambition of both the pre-eminent paradigms in twentieth
century scientific psychology: behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Each
sought to control the rat at its own particular level of analysis, the former
at the behavioral level, the latter at the level of unconsciousness.

Turning first to the behavioral level, Fred Wertz (1986) has shown
in his brilliant examination of psychology's history with rats the ubiquity
with which they have served as experimental subjects. In many years
more than eighty percent of psychological experiments used rats, in the
process devouring over a million rats per year. Indeed, it became an
almost universally required rite of passage for psychology students to
achieve control over a rat's behavior in order to earn their degree.
Manipulating a rat to run through a maze or to press a bar at various

8 The Meaning of Humanistic Psychology

times and rates in response to a variety of specific stimuli has been the
basis for tens of thousands of experiments throughout this century;
studies that form the bedrock upon which psychology's scientific edifice
was constructed. They constitute the very basis for justifying its recom-
mendations for similar manipulation of human beings to ensure their
submission to running "the rat race" for meager and intermittent rein-
forcement. Contemporaneously with the triumph of the machine age
and the rise of the assembly line in the first decades of the twentieth
century, psychology proffered its expertise as the discipline that could
demonstrate how to enforce the endless repetition of rote behaviors,
not to mention to achievement of docile compliance by the disturbed
and incarcerated.

It was not only this external, behavioral, level that became subject
to psychology's control. Wertz (1986) shows how the other significant
tradition that arose at the beginning of the twentieth century, psycho-
analysis, also aimed to control the rat. But its target was an inner rat. It
was Freud's case of the Rat Man that seemed to show him, and society,
the wild, irrational unconscious mind and demonstrated psychology's
greater power to control it. The patient was nicknamed "the rat man"
on account of his persistent anxious fantasy that someone would inflict
a gruesome torture on his father and a woman he knew. This torture
involved strapping a bucket full of hungry rats to their naked buttocks,
whereupon the rats would eat their way up the person's anus. Freud
exposed these terrifying rats as coming straight out of the person's own
unconscious, and brought that untamed rat-nature under rational con-
trol. (That the newly cured patient was killed shortly afterwards in the
massive battlefield slaughter of World War I offers us an ironic reflec-
tion of a larger, unaddressed, rat problem.)

In sum, a steadfast project to achieve control over the rat under-
girds both traditions of scientific psychology the very two paradigms
against which humanistic psychology offers itself as an alternative "third
force." But what makes the promise of rat control so deeply alluring?
To understand those depths, it will be necessary to return to the
pre-scientific experience of the rat, to the very experiential meanings
presupposed by scientific psychology (which remains nevertheless
founded upon them). For instance, the curiously pervasive presence of
rats wherever there are people offers a starting point for such reflection.
Alone among animal species, rats share with humans the same versatile
ability to inhabit the entire range of climates on the planet. Go to the
polar regions, and rats will be there. To the tropics. Rats again. Go
thousands of miles over the ocean by ship. Lo and behold, rats have

Christopher M. Aanstoos 9

accompanied the journey. This shadowy parallel of the rat to the human
extends to many physiological characteristics the two share, including
their similar glandular and neurological make-up, their carrying many
of the same diseases, and their sharing many surprising behavioral
similarities. Wertz (1986, pp. 144-146) cites a variety of sources to
document many of these similarities, including the following: both are
omnivorous; both eat their own kind in stressful situations; both have
the same gender ratio; in both males are larger and females fatter; both
breed in all seasons, especially the spring; both inbreed readily and
hybridize easily; in both mothers care for their young while helpless and
dependent while the male does little in the rearing of the offspring; both
family groups huddle together, groom each other, and the young need
touch to live; in both when the young attain maturity, they are evicted
from the family and seek a new home of its own, sometimes in an
altogether different community; if the rat lifespan were transposed onto
a human scale, the rat would go through puberty at sixteen years and
menopause at forty-five; both make war on their own kind, are in-
dividualistic until they need help, fight bravely when alone but only
against weaker enemies, and organize to fight in hordes; neither has
achieved social, commercial, or economic stability; the black rat's ag-
gression against the brown rat resembles human's interracial persecu-
tions; in wars of both species, the victors have been merciless.

As many of these similarities indicate, the rat is the mirror of the
human; it reflects the dark side of human existence. To even call
someone a "rat" is considered a gross insult. As Wertz (1986, p. 146)
says:

if rats share something in common with humans, it is the inhumanity
of man, expressing the despicable underside in a pure and unadul-
terated form which trails and follows man wherever he goes... This
nameless, faceless, anonymous, selfish hording element of exist-
ence so purely embodied to the rat, is the hidden side, the blind
spot of man's own being... We would rather not recognize these
features of ourselves. We push them to the margins, leave them in
the dark as we define ourselves in terms of justice, mercy, reason,
creativity and individuality... we live by traditions, obedience, and
the Good, denying with all our might that vague swarming which is
still ourselves, but a wild, free self outside the range we have
positively allowed ourselves.

In the service of that suppression, scientific psychology's program
of rat control assumes a previously unrecognized relevance. The

10 The Meaning of Humanistic Psychology

thousands of experiments on rats show nothing if not the psychologist's
ability to control every twitch and nuance of the rat's behavior. They
seem to represent the hyper-fulfillment of the promise of domination,
prediction, and control of "the rat." But when these experiments are
examined more carefully, one cannot help but notice a peculiar substitu-
tion. Those laboratory rats are small, docile, and white. They have been
deliberately mutated and bred for generations for laboratory use. They
seem most unlike the rats encountered in the real world beyond the
psychologist's lab. They are nothing like those large and fearsome rats
that lurk in the sewers of our civilization. Indeed, these tiny, pale white
things have never even lived on their own, and would most likely merely
die if turned loose. Experimentally manipulating them seems only an
illusion of progress, a deceptive sham. Even here, in its most privileged
realm, psychology's dream of domination and control reveals itself to be
a misguided and pathetic failure, the denial of which is sustained only
by psychology's self-deceptive hubris. Wertz calls for a re-evaluation of
this modernist enterprise of rat control. It is time to re-examine how
that psychology has projected a false ideal, and led to alienation.

Have we of the twentieth century... in our singular attempt to
annihilate our troubles merciless nature, the bestial, the childish,
the criminal, the insane, the sick, and so on ceased to understand
each other and ourselves inasmuch as all our lives, psychologists'
included, contain these themes? Again and again we have met the
paradox that the rat offers man no confirmation in its resolute
otherness and negativity, and yet holds the mirror before humanity.
In our quest to eliminate the rat we have paradoxically lost our very
humanity. (1986, p. 164)

Is there an alternative? Wertz himself suggested that "only by
owning our partial yet inevitable rat likeness might we approach our full
humanity" (1986, p. 164). How could psychology contribute to this
approach? Can psychology assist this vital ownership of being fully
human, and so come into possession of itself as an authentic and
originary perspective on human existence? Humanistic psychology says
yes, and seeks to do so by more integratively encompassing the human.
Humanistic psychology replaces traditional psychology's elementism
with a philosophy of holism, and so does not suppress the shadowy
mirror of the rat, nor seek domination over it. In place of such a
bankrupt promise of manipulation and domination, humanistic psycho-
logy offers a fundamentally different hope. Beyond the scope of the

Christopher M. Aanstoos 1 1

natural scientific quest for power and control, lies an alternative
humanistic vision of what is needed:

We need a psychology of affirmation, not control; a psychology of
witness and recognition, not test and measurement; a psychology
of deep commemoration, not superficial prediction... A psychology
of embrace, not engulf ment. There must be a way of fostering power
and action instead of docility and consumption; a tolerance for
ambiguity and compassion in the face of difference rather than
fearful sterilization and normalization. (Wertz, 1986, p. 165).

References

Brett, G. (1962). Brett's history of psychology (rev. ed.). New York: Macmillan.
Bullock, A. (1985). The humanist tradition in the west. New York: Norton.
Cantor, N. F. (1988). Twentieth-century culture: Modernism to deconstruction.

New York: Peter Lang.
Churchill, S. D. (1988). Humanistic psychology and introductory textbooks. The

Humanistic Psychologist, 16, 341-357.
Hartley, D. (1964). Observations on man, his frame, his duty and his expectations.

In J. Mandler & G. Mandler (Eds.), Thinking: From association to Gestalt.

New York: Wiley. (Original work published 1749)
Henley, T. B. & Faulkner, K. A. (1989). An addendum to Churchill's review of

introductory textbooks. The Humanistic Psychologist, 17, 329-330.
Hobbes, T. (1964). Humaine nature. In J. Mandler & G. Mandler (Eds.),

Thinking: From association to Gestalt. New York: Wiley. (Original work

published 1650)
Hume, D. (1978). A treatise on human nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

(Original work published 1739)
Husserl, E. (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental

phenomenology (D. Carr, Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University

Press. (Original work published 1936)
Jencks, C. (1986). What is postmodernism? New York: St. Martin's Press.
Kvale, S. (1990). Postmodern psychology: A contradicto in adjecto? The

Humanistic Psychologist, 18, 35-54.
Mandler, J. & Mandler, G. (1964). Thinking: From association to Gestalt. New

York: Wiley.
McKnight, S. A. (1989). Sacralizing the secular: The Renaissance origins of

modernity. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible (A. Lingis, Trans.).

Evanston: Northwestern University Press. (Original work published 1964)
Mill, J. (1967). Analysis of the human mind. New York: A. W. Kelly. (Original

work published 1829)
Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Knopf.
Toulmin, S. (1990). Cosmopolis: The hidden agenda of modernity. New York:

The Free Press.
Wertz, F. J. (1986). The rat in psychological science. The Humanistic

Psychologist, 14, 143-168.

Creativity and the Methodological Debate:
A Mytho-Historical Reflection

Mike Arons

Qualitative Research: Myth and Historical Reality

In Antoine Saint-Exupery's (1943) story, le Petit Prince, a Turkish
astronomer, garbed in native dress, presents a paper at an international
conference describing his discovery of a new asteroid. His an-
nouncement is met with polite indifference. He returns several decades
later to the conference, but now in European garb since Turkey had
meanwhile nationalized. He presents the same paper about the same
asteroid and he is acclaimed for his great discovery.

Something like this is the reason that human science and qualitative
research are having such a struggle trying to gain recognition. Those for
whom it is suited have not yet recognized their need for it. This is due,
largely, to its wrapping which is confounded with philosophy and intro-
spection. The philosophical critique of the old psychology methods and
the digging of the groundwork for new qualitative research in the social
sciences have been in the process of development for a century, par-
ticularly in Europe. In the United States, the Duquesne school, above
all, has been Spartan in its labour of translating philosophical founda-
tions into rigorous, fertile and original research methods for the social
sciences (e.g., Giorgi, 1970).

Mike Arons 13

I would like to propose and defend a more optimistic view about
the future of qualitative research. We may be at the point of beholding
the mountain coming to Mohamnmed. For good reason, which will
become evident, I am going to put my focus on American psychology in
this paper and suggest that as a delayed reaction, it is about to open up
to human science approaches. In the end of his life, Carl Rogers, for
instance, was enthused and enthusing others about new qualitative
approaches that are so well attuned to demands for meaning, complexity
and wholeness inherent to the humanistic vision of man (Arons, 1985).
American psychology had, after all, undergone, during the sixties and
seventies, a major shift in faculty and student interest from the
academic-research (dominated by natural science models) to the
professional-applied end of the field. Rogers had helped lead this
displacement of psychology's center of gravity. It is encouraging just to
have heard him re-emphasize research in its newly developing qualita-
tive approaches.

But my basis for optimism is only bolstered by such good signs. What
is being expressed has, in my opinion, a much deeper foundation. The
dialectical movement in the direction of qualitative approaches to
research in American psychology began in the fifties with the emer-
gence of a historical clash between two Titans. One Titan was the
quantitative methodology which dominated American psychology. The
other was a human subject matter called 'creativity,' so dreaded by the
former. Yet, the encounter was fated. Since the confrontation has all
the qualities of myth, it is best to at least introduce the story by taking
full advantage of the power of myth.

Quantitative methodology ruled the entire kingdom of psychology
and all its neighboring social sciences. So consolidated had become
the dominance of this approach and so distanced by apparent
success from its own family origins, that these origins were never
spoken of except in terms flattering to the method. This methodol-
ogy would tell stories about itself and its ascendancy to dominance.
It would read from the scriptures of Auguste Comte about the
primitives who inhabit both history and subjectivity, of the slow rise
of its ancestors from animism and projection through noble at-
tempts of peoples and the mind to grapple with realities beyond
their fears and desires. Mentioned often is Uncle Physics, who by
his boldness and originality conquered the physical world from the
aging and waning King Philosophy. He had lithographs of Uncle
Physics' conquests which he showed whenever asked or given the
opportunity. All knew that Uncle Physics was the model for this

14 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

methodology's conquests in the land of the psyche (in any event,
the land had once been called psyche). What was never told, or
perhaps even remembered, in royal circles where background is a
matter of some consequence, were the differences between the
ways that this methodology achieved dominance in psychology as
compared, really contrasted with the ways Uncle Physics had taken
over from old King Philosophy. If the truth be known and honestly
stated, this methodology, ruler of psychology and the social scien-
ces, inherited nearly everything of what it has become from Uncle
Physics. Of course, Uncle Physics had earned his success the hard
way. The methods of Physics evolved slowly and in relationship to
the encounters with the physical world and at a point it became
evident to both winner, Physics, and loser, Philosophy, that the
latter had nothing comparable to offer. Philosophy retired from the
physical world with dignity. Being a noble fellow, he helped out
Uncle Physics when and wherever he could. But things were dif-
ferent in psychology and the other social sciences. The
philosophers knew that while the method had introduced a new
language and a set of impressive formalities, psychology had never
left the oldest questions asked during the days when King
Philosophy reigned. It simply crowned itself a better manager of
these questions than philosophy who had centuries earlier raised
them. But this was merely a matter of double theft: questions from
Philosophy, method from Uncle Physics. The story of ancestry is
more sordid though. It starts with an incestuous relationship. Uncle
Physics was ruling a land of subjects who were natively different
from himself. Thus he could more easily respect them as strangers
and employ the most effective, if necessarily indirect, means to get
to know them and by this understanding of their ways would they
come slowly to yield to his rule. But, alas, the relationship between
the psychologist and his subject matter was, to put it discreetly,
more intimate. Indeed, if in psychology there was to be a relation-
ship at all which could appear honorable, it was necessary that the
new reigning methodology forced, by extraordinary double contor-
tion, a distance between the human psychologist and the human
subject matter. The first part of the contortion was not hard to effect
because the prying instrument to gain cleavage was borrowed from
Uncle Physics. It was called the objective attitude through which
the psychologist could distance himself from himself. Kings must
always keep this distance. There was a ritual called scientific educa-
tion which taught how this is done. Or, if one were clever, he could
merely recite the incantation, over and over, that I am a scientist,
and all the rest of this humanness, especially that nasty pre-scientist

Mike Arons 15

stuff, would just vanish. But to assure this, the method as applied
had built-in constraints and red light signals just in case some lyrical
subjectivity managed to whistle its way through. The second part of
the contortion was hard, for this was something the methodology
in psychology never could borrow but had to improvise on its own.
Here it was a matter of making human subjects into objects, like
those of the physical world. This double contortion had put a strain
in the land of psychology. The philosophers have never ceased to
talk about this strain because, after all, they are concerned with
ultimate truths. They not only sense, but fully understand both the
basis and burden in debt to fate which psychology carries.

Some who tell stories, liken the situation of the psychology's natural
science methodology to the Hindu symbol of the snake which is eating
its own tail, pretending not to know or being dumb to the foreseeable
consequences should this incestuous relationship continue unabated.
In any event, the method assures that the distinction between pretend-
ing and dumb is merely academic. Once the method starts eating away,
it never sees more than a nibble in advance and, at that, has established
all the skepticism and safeguards to assure no recognition of itself in its
mouth.

Others liken the strain to the story of Oedipus, who while escaping
his fate becomes, like the method, king, intelligently ruling over subjects
whose problems he cannot possibly understand, for lack of under-
standing of himself. The strain is not reduced until Oedipus encounters
pre-scientific subjectivity through a primitive yank at the emotions. I
like this version because it offers me the lever to move to the major
point of this article. That is, that American psychology in the 1950's met
Tiresias in the form of creativity.

Somewhere between the Dumb and the Blind

Nearly anything that was new, democratic sounding and not boring
was welcome to America at the time it gave refuge to functionalism in
its behaviouristic form. It is as if William James were a bridge between
a boring German and an evangelical American attempt at objectivity
a role for which he would certainly not wish to be remembered. But he
might have been dismayed, though not surprised, to have seen the day
when the latter became as trivial and pedantic as the former. Given its
early promise of instant success, one might wonder how the new
American psychology could have postponed its day of reckoning until
the 1950's.

16 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

That question lends itself to interesting thoughts. Survival of the
new psychology, once defeated in its introspectionist form, rode on
playing safe and dumb. Its safety was a cocoon it built around itself,
making it impervious to criticisms from without and even within. As a
science it was now in a class progressively beyond philosophy out of
earshot and in any event, it spoke a new and esoteric language of
jargon and operational definitions intentionally disconnected from
natural language. Its taste for elements served to segmentalize its
enterprises into micro-specialties and increasingly isolated psychology
from the once related, but now distant, fields of social science. But even
these seemed not much more distant than any subfield of psychology
from another. If the cocoon developed on the outside, the isolating
mechanism operated from within. It was a new science which, it seemed
fair, could only approach the subject matter incrementally beginning
with the simplest indications of 'humanness' first - which often meant
animal studies. However, this was the way of forestalling the day when
that psychology had to encounter a humanness more than its match.
That would turn out to be the titan Creativity.

It could avoid thinking about such things by substituting for a reality
check of its own, a priori assumptions borrowed, like its method, from
other fields about the depth and scope of the human subject. Hedonism
largely provided the energetics and functionalism the telos. This ob-
viated the need for a philosophy of humanness and also provided the
inherent justification for predictability and potential control. The
American society, stretched by pluralism, needed a psychology of ad-
justment hust to collectively breathe. Its past, like that of its psychology,
viewed obsolescent, left nothing but progress to consider. And signs of
progress were everywhere in America. Psychology benefitted here. For
unlike its unfortunate European cousins who had to communicate with
their pre-scientific colleagues, American psychology was granted early
and total autonomy from philosophy.

Playing dumb was a game learned from the positivists who called it
objectivity. By this, for whatever else it's benefits, a split occurs between
the man and scientist. The scientist played dumb to the man, to his
feelings to his own personal experience. He was already playing dumb
to the pre-sciences. It was fair for the scientist to peek, on off-hours, in
the interest of his creativity which he was allowed to call a "gut
feeling" but none of this stolen fruit was to be recognizable in the
scientific formulation of the product. By an interesting pact, ratified in
the American constitution, to insure the purity of both, a stiff arm
distance was also to be kept between the secular and the religious. Max

MikeArons 17

Weber (1958) thinks that Protestantism is that arm. This situation also
permitted psychology to play dumb to the claims of an invisible spiritual
world proclaimed by those of blind faith. There is no doubt plenty of
room for misunderstanding and mischief when a society stands between
the authorities of the dumb and the blind. One really does not under-
stand where either of them is at or if they at all have anything in common.
The Church-secular split in America took a different form than that
tried elsewhere. In America, students received their spiritual training in
Sunday school and not, as in France, by means of historically raised
spiritual questions now examined in secular philosophy. Where
American education, after formalities were dispensed with, led un-
abashedly toward the functional, i.e., social adjustment and jobs, French
education led toward "culture generale" and "l'annee philosophique."

Where the disturbed adolescent in France was likely seen as passing
through "la crise spirituelle," requiring intimacy and self-exploration,
his counterpart in America was sent to the counselor for a dose of 'social
adjustment.' Those in America who found no comfortable home in the
dogmas of the church and yet found adjustment less than a satisfying
escatology, and who had abandoned past cultural and ethnic identities
in the name of progress could easily feel like spiritual orphans. It was a
state of uneasiness widely enough spread to spawn the sort of social
reaction which erupted in the 1960's. This same spiritual void would
spawn the creativity and humanistic reaction within American psycho-
logy.

But that is the key encounter we are not yet prepared to face. The
matter of playing dumb took several forms: e.g., split of scientist from
man [himself] and his object [once man]; split of positivist from
philosophy and pre-science; split of autonomous psychologist from
colleagues and split of thinking man from blind faith. The matter of
playing dumb was supported from within by a priori motor telos
assumptions of wholeness, and supported from without by a society
sharing values of the functional subject and progressive methods. Com-
bined, these all amounted to the obverse side of their promised benefits:
to massive suppression.

The combination of a sequestered dumbness, as our educators and
psychoanalytic colleagues would remind us, is pregnant with explosive
future possibilities, both fortunate and unfortunate. One might say that
the form American psychology took amounted to a bet with very high
stakes. The bet was that the method with its progressive objective of
prediction and control could ultimately devour, at least on its own terms,
the subject. The price of failure would be that not dissimilar to the fate

18 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

of Wundt and Titchener's structuralism, but perhaps much worse, given
the magnitude of the suppression of history and subjectivity required by
the boldness of this new leap. To the advantage of American psychology,
the day of the crucial test could be forestalled for reasons offered above,
until something unexpected, outside the method's control capabilities,
would occur, i.e., a rebellion from its supportive society and/or from
within in a form psychology could not ignore without denying itself and
its raison d'etre.

Creativity: Internal Combustion

By the 1950's social adjustment and conformity had become less
distinguishable, at least in the public mind, and the latter had reached
stages of epidemic proportions (e.g., Goodman, 1960). The Sputnik
shock bolted its way into the complacent social consciousness prodding
an immediate and subsequent realization. The immediate, that America
produced few of its native born or educated creative scientists and,
subsequent, that science and technology for all their contributions to
progress and material gifts were providing little concomitant self-under-
standing or personal satisfaction. Remedies for the first, i.e., a tight
return to the intrinsics of education, especially to mathematics and
science, were reversed and finally overwhelmed by attempted remedies
for the second. American education offering little to satisfy the hunger
for self -exploration and science offering little in this direction or even
personal satisfaction from its products, resulted in an extreme loosening
and broadening of education. This reaction was coupled with a growing
aversion to science, technology and materialism, and also to conformity,
making jobs and professions. The social revolution of the 1960's was on.
But its parting shot, creativity, preceded it by a decade (Asch, 1952).

This new hunger for self-exploration made European-based exis-
tentialism, and Western and Eastern transcendentalism widely popular
reading. The psychedelic movement gave an instant vision of the
universe within, paling by contrast social life as lived and, especially,
psychology's laboratory version of it (Leary, 1983). The interest in both
existentialism and mysticism, though from different tracks, led towards
and from the central station of creativity. Creativity was now on the table
for psychology, forced by the society. Why had not the functionalists
model in psychology, education and life produced the source inspiration
for progress? Why were the "obsolescent" cultures, at home or by
immigrant ambassadors, producing the basic creative stuff of science?

Mike Arons 19

From the side of the students of psychology came the question: "is that
all there is?"

The subject of creativity provided a perfect vehicle to negotiate a
break from fixed patterns of thinking and unquestioned assumptions
both about giftedness in the scientist and personal growth. Creativity
had that horizonal quality of what Merleau-Ponty (1964) called "ultra
choses" very apt for an area of recognized human potential historically
ensconced in such an aura of respect, awe and mystery. Creativity had
other special qualities not easily dismissed, mechanized or reduced away
by psychologists trained in such arts. It had tangible and valued
utilitarian products, unlike religion and mysticism whose experiential
claims could be reduced to illusion, delusion and consolidation. These
creative products were often authored by psychologists themselves and
placed as originating in their "gut feelings." Science itself was becoming
a contemporary expression of the new, the novel of creativity and, as
Bronowski ( 1958) was to claim, the scientific method was itself the single
most creative product invented by Western culture. Creativity could not
be denied legitimate status as a research subject without at the same
time denying the self-image of the scientist.

What was to make creativity particularly indomitable in terms of
resistance to dismissal, mechanization or reduction was the inherent
significance of the term 'originality,' which by definition implies the
unpredictable. This was the most inherently frightening aspect of this
word, to a psychology operating from a model of prediction and control.
It posed the distinct possibility of a human process itself as being
unpredictable. Furthermore, 'originality' is a two vectored word. One
vector is towards the origins. Here, in the regressive relationship of the
new to the origins was the spector of possibility most ominous in its
implications for a psychology which had in the name of positive progress
expediently suppressed its historical past and personal subjectivity
(Burtt, 1952; Krippner & Arons, 1973).

Indeed, the studies on creativity were to reveal a great distinction
between the creative and non-creative scientist. The latter, like his
method, more characterized by repression or suppression of complexity,
disdain for ambiguity and equivocal symbols, compulsive rigor and
preference for control and order at all stages. The former, characterized
by much the opposite plus a non-pathological emotional lability; strong
'primary process' activity; holistic or Gestalt (rather than elementistic)
life and organization styles; and strong interest in self-discovery and
personal development. Above all, the creative scientist, and more so the

20 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

artist, were hardly recognized by their exemplary social adjustment
(MacKinnon 1962; Barron, 1963).

Maslow (1962) was to find in the profile of the creative individual,
among whose ranks he recognized few of his colleagues, striking cor-
relaries to the traits he was finding in his self-actualizing subjects. For
instance, the literature on both groups speaks of "peak" and "transcen-
dent" experience (which would become foundational experiences for
transpersonal psychology). Maslow discerned two versions of creativity:
one centered on talent, the other characterized by a special spontaneity
and originality of life style. Here Maslow both popularized creativity
a spur to the human potentials movement gathering rapid momentum
in the United States and linked creative and Zen perception, and
frequency of peak and mystic experiences among creative self-ac-
tualizers. The artist John Ferran had come to make this link between
the traditionally "talent centered creative" and the "mystic" in a more
direct manner. He suggested that the artist would be drawn by inspira-
tion towards completion of the work of art. The mystic would reinvest
his inspiration towards self-expansion and greater mystical unity. The
creative process in the scientist was presumably similar to that in the
artist, both having a potentially mystical side. Such links between
creativity and mystical experience have a considerable history in the
humanities at large (e.g., Laski, 1962).

This creative-mystical nexus represented in positive and
psychological health terms that which had been fundamentally rejected
in favour of the method (e.g., consciousness, ambiguity, equivocal sym-
bolism, the mythological and even the mystical). Psychology did what it
could to turn torrid creativity into a tepid sub-field except in applied
areas (e.g., Torrance, 1976) where it has pretty much languished over
the years or has been theoretically reduced to a form of information
processing. But as the emergence of cognitive psychology itself indi-
cates, along with dozens of new professional divisions, psychology has
never been the same since the creative part of the creativity revolution
occurred. Both its foundations and a priori models of the human have
been wounded and remain vulnerable.

Creativity: Reaction within Psychology

While the more mystical dimensions of Maslow (1971), and certain-
ly much of the popular extensions of the creativity revolution, could be
underplayed or dismissed by academic psychology, other more in-
digenous and traditionally empirical wings of the rebellion opened by

MlkeArons 21

creativity research could not, at least not without intolerable family
squabbles. Some of this research was quite explicit in confronting itself
to both the method and major productions of psychology at that time.
In his 1950 Presidential Address before the American Psychological
Association, Guilford (1952) explicitly set up such an opposition.
Among the four reasons he gave for the relative lack of interest into
creativity prior to the fifties (fewer than one hundred publications
before and over one thousand by the end of that decade) were: excessive
preoccupation with IQ tests; domination of learning theory; and
prevalence of excessively rigid methodological standards. The fourth,
lack of adequate criteria by which to define creativity, has its own
interest for us which we will come to in its time.

But the opposition was more often implicit in the form of focus,
questions asked and research variables selected for study. In a nutshell,
the criteria developed for defining creativity were fashioned largely in
terms of what was now recognized as not creativity or even anticreativity
or, put differently, in terms of those characteristics in psychology and
society now being recognized as sterile. But this meant that the creativity
research itself was largely fashioned by that which it opposed, making
this research a significant expression of the local socio-historical con-
text. Some examples of the implicit oppositions characteristic of the
creativity research of the period will be discussed (Arons, 1965).

Historically, interest in creativity had largely focused on art and the
artist. The research interest flourishing in the 1950's focused more on
science and the scientist. As Hudson (1966) conjectured on this shift,
creativity was being updated to the new cultural heros. The scientist was
now seen in a new light, previously reserved mainly for the artist. By that
widely held view, artistic products such as Shakespeare's character,
Hamlet, were unique, irreproduceable, products of the creator's im-
agination. On the other hand, scientific products such as laws of conser-
vation of energy were mere discoveries of realities that any scientist at
some point would potentially find. Now the updated formulation ex-
pressed by Bronowski (1958) suggested that great scientific products,
like art products, were unique individual construals of reality.

This new formulation linking science to individual originality
had significant implications as regards the status of scientific method.
In science viewed as discovery, the role of the (discovering) method
becomes dominant. But if the great leaps of progress of science churn
around the individual creative scientist more than around the method,
then an understanding of that uniqueness is essential. This leads to such
questions as to the conditions for creativity, implicating the educational,

22 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

laboratory and social conditions. Opposing existent to ideal conditions
in creativity research, the former were found seriously wanting and even
antagonistic to the latter. In a word, turning particularly to psychology,
the over-emphasis on the importance of method and, as Guilford (1952)
states, this particular objectivistic method as then applied, proves to be
an obstacle not only to the study of creativity but to nurturing creativity
itself.

What of the values of personal selection and educational prepara-
tion for science? With a stress on the power of method, these are one
thing; a stress on the creative power of the individual, these are quite
another. Preparation to serve the method more appropriately stresses
the systematic, standardized and that which is convergent towards broad
and specific ends; that requiring precise and efficient thinking within
defined parameters; that affording a great tolerance for deferral of
reward; that social in the sense of shared mission, forms and communica-
tion and that void of the personal subjective. By contrast, preparation
to serve personal creativity more appropriately stresses the pre-sys-
tematic or that largely aimed at intuitive development; that which
stresses the ideographic, impulsive, divergent towards possibilities, the
metaphorical and symbolic; that which is open to the chaotic, iconoclas-
tic and rebellious and that which is strongly dependent on access to vital
emotion and personal experience (Barron, 1963).

To the question of what are, in fact, the generalized characteristics
of those selected (or who self-select) to enter science, Hudson (1966),
no uncritical supporter of creativity research, acknowledges that the
creativity literature supports a view that physical scientists do evade
personal issues and the psychologist "does something even more odd-
he tries to make sense of the human experience by reifying it." These
observations are relative to the larger point made earlier in this chapter
that scientists tend to be deniers or suppressors of the personal.

The area of creativity research which provokes Hudson to these
observations is that in which creative potential is differentiated from
intellectual potentials as measured by IQ tests. The IQ test, as Guilford
suggests, becomes an important symbol and concrete vehicle for
creativity research. The creativity research expresses at once that which
is inadequate in terms of educational preparation and personal selection
for science and that which is inadequate to both the psychological and
social view of 'functionalist' man. The consistently high correlations
boasted between IQ scores and educational, social and vocational suc-
cess, prove to be the lever which energizes the new assault on educa-
tional, personal and social values. Convergent thinking is centrally

Mike Arons 23

valued in both test items and educational curricula, at the nearly com-
plete expense of 'divergent' thinking (Getzels & Jackson, 1962).

Both in IQ tests and in education, pure convergent thinking comes
to be recognized as leading to standard conservative goals and values.
Both turn out to be vehicles expressing and enforcing functionalists
values, including social, professional and psychological goal-directed-
ness. Both value, first of all, goal directedness itself and both value
externally set socially reified goals such as scientist or professional,
which require step by step purging of all 'irrelevancies' not pertaining
to these socially valued ends. This is where, once again, suppression
comes in. For both the answers to the tests and vocational goals are
measured by reduction to simple form, exclusion or rational instrumen-
talizing of emotion in the service of goals (called motivation), prefer-
ence for symmetry and preference for the efficient rather than the
complex, ambiguous or paradoxical (Getzels & Jackson, 1962; Tor-
rance, 1976).

The relationship between IQ and functionalist psychological and
social values had been made decades earlier by Terman himself, whose
standardized Stanford-Binet test accounted for much of the popular
wide appeal and application of IQ tests in American education. Arguing
generally against past conceptions of the frail and emotionally unstable
caricature of the creative genius, and specifically a renewed version of
this caricature proposed by Lange-Eichbaum (1932), Terman and Oden
(1947) concluded that their follow-up of high IQ subjects had shown
them to be biologically superior and to be characterized by "all around
social adjustment." In a word, Terman's IQ-tested geniuses were models
of Darwinian survival. Of course this was the correlate of psychology's
model of superior psychological health, notably with its stress on adjust-
ment to social reality.

Now contrasted to these values implicit to IQ and explicit to
psychology generally, the new model for psychological health and suc-
cess emerged in the name of creativity. Counted among Terman's
geniuses "were no individuals who succeeded as Shakespeare, Goethe,
Tolstoy, etc." an admission Terman explains away by the role luck plays
in achievement of creative renown and by contemporary pressures
towards specialization. The creativity literature suggests, quite dif-
ferently, that lack of creative renown of Terman's high IQ geniuses is
more associated with the values and forms which underlay his testing
instrument itself. The creative individual reaches into inner resources:
these he has nurtured and to them he has continuous access. He prizes
both self-realization and self-actualization, deals with the experienced

24 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

world intrinsically rather than instrumentally and is prone to take
psychological, creative and spiritual risks (Maslow, 1971).

Yet the creative individual measured for originality (or other crea-
tive characteristics) and those who were already recognized for their
creative contributions now serving as subjects, are not lacking in social
or psychological reality orientation. Quite the contrary, so strong, char-
acteristically, are the 'egos' of the creative that like the Master at martial
arts, these persons could skillfully suspend their 'secondary process'
functioning in the interest of exploring the possibility of greater unities
of reality (Kris, 1953). This process of "regression in the service of ego,"
indeed the entire process connected with creative activity, not infre-
quently opened the individual in the creative process to experiences and
realms of reality inaccessible to those centered mostly on the task of
survival and adjustment: connections between individuals; sense of
personal and collective teleology beyond survival; and ability to see the
sacred at least the significant in the 'banal.' Frank Barron, among
others, was to draw this relationship between the creative individual and
the new vision of the psychologically healthy personality (Barron, 1963).

Enough has been said to indicate how much the creative research
was connected with and served as an expression of a reaction from
within and against the standards of the time in American psychology and
society. Yet the point seems self-defeating. For if we are dealing with a
local revolution limited to a mid-twentieth century American context,
then the implications for the broader question of methodology seem
weak or non-existent. I suggest the contrary is the case. It is precisely
the relativism of the event which gives it more universal meaning.

Broader Implications for the Field

It is the uniqueness of context and meanings which makes the
creativity revolution both a matter of local and international relevance.
If one can look at America as the California of the Western World, it
can be viewed as an experimental laboratory of that world. These are
terms that many American psychologists would likely feel at home with.
However, psychologists wrapped in the notions that their approach is
'objective,' i.e. not culture-bound, and their knowledge a progressive
product of slow methodological accrual, would be less likely to acknow-
ledge or appreciate the experiment, or test, in which they have been key
participants. Even more certainly, the psychologists would likely not
admit or realize what was at stake in this test: the very foundations of
the method itself as applied in the human sciences.

Mike Arons 25

But events cannot be denied. After the 1950's, American psychol-
ogy exploded into literally hundreds of splinters, represented by the
proliferation of divisions and specialties in the American Psychological
Association. Its gravitational center shifted to cognition, but now within
seeing range of the more extraordinary possibilities raised during the
creativity revolution and its even more radically suggestive offshoots.
The research/academic, once unchallenged king, has been supplanted
in popularity and influence by the professional and applied ends of
psychology. In brief, American psychology has been altered readically
since the 1950's, but has yet to take full stock of the directions and
meanings suggested by these changes or to reformulate its subject
matter and methods in terms of these.

The conservative temper which currently eclipses the United
States, has led to a period for reformulation. The reformulation has
begun at the guild and political end. Lost territories are being reclaimed
(at the academic research level) and newly gained money, power and
influence consolidated (in the applied areas). The academics are moving
towards more standardized curricula and more control over the applied
ends through means of accreditation. The professionals, big political
winners of the past twenty years, are attempting to consolidate their
gains through control of professional schools, licensure, political lobby-
ing, control over state organizations and other guild serving instru-
ments. The battle passes through the political arena. It has not yet
passed through the ideological arena.

Yet, in my opinion, it is the ideological reformulation which is
brewing beneath the surface and which strongly favors an opening to
human science or qualitative research. The past twenty years have been
characterized by a mass migration from the research end of psychology.
The period has been characterized more by personal search than col-
lective research. This was, in a sense, a return to the medieval, but also
to the Eastern emphasis on personal and direct salvation rather than on
the rationalist collective and indirect salvation represented by the model
of science (Arons, 1976). Unencumbered by positivistic skepticism and
methodological presuppositions, universes of human possibility have
been opened during this period of search. The search has carried the
searchers to and through vast territories rejected or deferred by scien-
tific psychology but now, by its own routes, reopened ironically in certain
areas of quantum physics and neurology (Wilber, 1984). This search in
its many forms has been largely centered around consciousness, that
term most completely rejected by the behaviourists.

26 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

These forms have been psychological, spiritual and social as in
expanded or altered states of consciousness and Black, Feminist, Gay
or Ecological consciousness. The paths of consciousness have not led
only to, though perhaps through, a new 'individualism' in the form of
narcissism but, rather, to two newly realized or newly appreciated planes
of intrinsic human connectedness. The first is ecological, the second
spiritual. I stress here the intrinsic connectedness. These planes of
connectedness are there and call for discovering and preserving rather
than to be formed actively in individual and collective self-interest.

With this new awareness, the post-Renaissance rationalistic neces-
sity for mastery and control of self and environment is relativized. The
other planes of human connectedness, such as the social, economic and
political become less ends in themselves for survival and more instru-
ments in the service of personal and collective fulfillment. People are
less to be seen as instruments who sacrifice their awareness of intrinsic
planes and connectedness in the interest of deferred rewards from
science and society.

These reflective observations are not, I conceded, measurable facts
which describe current realities. But these are also not merely subjective
fantasies in the sense that they now have natural, i.e., scientific factual
(e.g., ecological) and experiential (e.g., spiritual) grounding. What is
significant about the double sense of connectedness, ecological and
spiritual, is that they are now directly and popularly experienced as
realities. Intuitively, they have been grasped and by their intrinsic
natures, provide, ontologically, an existential ground for humanness.
Epistemologically, they make more palatable the Kantian based intui-
tive mode of knowing rather than the skeptical Human based philo-
sophies. The need to find external sources of knowledge and causality
and even the need for 'motivation' in that extrinsic sense which fueled
the past models of the human in the social sciences, is now situated
rather than absolute. Seen in this way, epistemology now has regained
intrinsic sources, opened and directed by awareness from that of which
it is aware. In this same view, axiology is now intrinsically grounded,
raising serious questions about the long range prospects of success for
a 'value-free' science. Explanation, which implies an inherent pre-ra-
tional dumbness to that area which 'connects' a cause and an effect, is
supplemented by understanding which speaks to an awareness of the
necessity of reflectively thematized connections.

Such a climate, which is largely the legacy of the informal explora-
tion of experience and consciousness of the past two decades, bodes
well for human science or qualitative research. There is now a research

Mike Arons 27

void to be filled. It is likely that those who have been influenced by the
climate of that period, whatever the disciplinary choice, will be more
amenable to even insistent on a reformulation taking into account
dimensions and domains of human experiences no longer hidden by
suppression or dogmatic philosophical assumptions of the past. Indeed,
the holistic values of these past two decades portend a breaking down
of the walls separating past disciplines which were predicated on ele-
mentism and certain alienating assumptions which are now relativized.
There is evidence at symposia on qualitative research and also within
academic settings, of the preference of many young faculty and students
for more integrated or multidimensional approaches to the human
sciences.

Convergence of Creativity and Method

The above speculations are based not solely on conjecture from
current observation of trends. They have a base in necessity, the neces-
sity revealed within and about the human subject, starting with the
creativity revolution, which require new epistemological, ontological
and axiological assumptions to ground research into the human. The
creativity revolution reveals a different human potential from that
assumed by current research philosophies. For example, originality, by
definition, is not predictable. Creative science is powered by this ap-
parent potential for unpredictability but its methodological assumptions
ignore it. In fact, developing philosophies of method which emphasize
understanding and recognition more than explanation and utility, seem
more attuned to the human potential revealed by the creativity litera-
ture than the tenets of natural science. Let us consider examples of this
attunement, or at least the apparent convergence between the new
methods and creative potential.

The phenomenologist-hermeneutician, Ricoeur (1970), is one of
several who have formally observed the relationship between the
psychoanalytic "topographical domain" of the preconscious central to
creativity, and meanings of consciousness reached through the process
of phenomenological reduction. In creativity, Kris's (1953) "regression
in the service of ego," though not identical, has some correspondence
in terms of process to Husserl's phenomenological reduction, centered
on the term 'epoche' which intentionally 'frees' or gives access to
preconscious material. This particular form of suspension of judgment,
this bracketing, has its approximate corollary in the creative process in
terms of putting 'aside' one frame of reference, letting it 'gestate' while

28 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

dealing with others, all awaiting a 'deeper* sense of meaning or unity, a
new essential relationship. Suspension of judgment is hardly a concept
alien to the methods in the natural sciences. But where and how it is
founded 'topographically' relative to creativity or phenomenology is an
issue of theoretical and practical importance.

The creative process follows, again, along the lines of phenomenol-
ogy in terms of the relationship of the subject-object, in acknowledging
the inherent kinship of the 'two.' Nonetheless, this explicit admission
allows for differentiation and for appreciation of uniqueness, a basis for
unpredictability of the subject-object. This recognition of difference
within continuity and inexhaustibility places much of the field of under-
standing in the domain of immediate diversity and conflicts of lived
world meanings. These lived conflicts appear in the creative process as
a tolerance for ambiguity and complexity and a resistance to reduc-
tionism from consciousness of convenient but distorting tendencies
towards the normative.

This same multi-significant and contradictory world has focus both
in phenomenology and particularly, in hermeneutics where the passage
from meaning to meaning both differentiates and reveals essential
relationships not grasped in the state of 'premiere naivete.' The creative
potential to subtly attune to isolated but significant indications of
essential meaning such as Freud's example of the unstable position
of the tablets in Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses suggests cor-
respondence to the significant experienced-revealed essence relation-
ship recognized in phenomenology.

Little need be said about the new appreciation in many fields,
including philosophy and hermeneutical psychology, for the creative
value of the symbol. This newly rediscovered appreciation for symbolism
coincides with the characterization of creative thinking as metaphorical.
For all the justified objections to language, symbol and, particularly
metaphor, as subjective obstacles to scientific knowledge, much creative
thinking even at the scientific level proves to be metaphorical. This
implies that one does not pass to the complexity of creative human
thinking, experience, meaning and action without passing through the
thickets of language and symbolic thought, and "language is the source
of all misunderstanding," wrote Sainte-Exupery (1943).

Specific suggested correlatives can be added to and even multi-
plied. But there is a much broader level at which creativity research and
human or qualitative research join. They both push subjectivity to its
limits, and although the former path is not made explicit, the latter's is.
For both, subjectivity is a form of objectivity in the sense that the object

Mike Arons 29

is the guide and the relationship called for is one characterized in the
creativity literature as "detached-engagement." One could speculate
that this relationship to the world experienced has its own correlaries
in the philosophies of religion* East and West, a Taoist perception or a
Biblical view of the "in but not of the world." Implied is a respect for
uniqueness as well as the continuity and extension presented within
creative 'space' or 'distancing.'

The intelligence required of both human science research and
creativity is recognized as broader and different from that measured by
utilitarian tests, particularly standardized tests. Such an expanded sense
of intelligence or 'esprit' is not apart from empathy, sensitivity, self-
awareness, emotional validity, significance of values and the sense of
personal and human destiny. Human destiny is different from but
evidently implicated in progress of the scientific variety. The studies on
creativity have undermined much of, at least, the common meaning of
progress associated with positivistic assumptions (these implicit as well
to IQ testing). Maslow (1962) realized this but stopped short of smash-
ing the idol of science as the only form of inquiry which could 'progress.'
He asked that science take into account, as heuristics, the contributions
from the pre-sciences, i.e., art, poetry, philosophy, theology. However,
he fell into trap of construing all progress in a single, more linear,
manner like that characterized by technology.

Boirel (1961) points out that the pre-sciences also progress but in
a qualitatively different way. The relationship in technology between a
TX-1 model and an advanced TX-2 model is one of defined improve-
ment. The relationship between impressionism and cave art, on the
other hand, is one of expanded views and meanings of reality. In art,
unlike technology, the recent progression does not render the earlier
product obsolete. Science, according to Boirel, has dimensions and
qualities of both technology and the consciousness expanding pre-scien-
ces. The creativity literature is rather explicit in establishing the essen-
tial relationship in the interest of creative contributions to 'progress' as,
to use Ricoeur's (1970) terms, one of Arche Telos. It offers the
resources for and the possibility of revitalization of the sedimented
symbols and meanings of the past, historically and personally, in the
interest of the creative work or creative living. The creative literature,
best illustrated by the work of Barron (1963), insists on the creative
individual's access to continuity between early and recent experience,
all of which serves as resources in the creative effort. This continuity
with 'past' or 'the subjective' living with all the meanings and com-
plexity makes for a better understanding of the non-pathological

30 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

personal and social instability often observed in such creative individ-
uals.

There is a type of validation inherent to the creative process a
discrimination of the true and real which differs from but both
precedes and antedates the validation process valued in science using a
positivistic method. It is the validation of the poet, or philosopher, and
lies in a sense of necessity, harmony and elegance. It is aesthetic as well
as logical and heuristic: aesthetic in the sense that the ideas are con-
gruent; logical in the sense of coherence, or recognition of that which
is intellectually discordant, incompatible; and heuristic in the sense of
suggesting new, potentially harmonious paths. The creative process has
a 'built-in' dimension of criticality which is recognized in the fresh yet
plausible quality of the creative product, which in science then makes it
a candidate for positivistic validation, e.g., as an hypothesis, theory,
model, etc. Of this creative pre-science of the scientific process itself
Einstein (1934) wrote:

Science as something existing and complete is the most objective
thing known to Man. But science as an end to be pursued, science
in the making, as subjective and psychologically conditioned as any
other branch of human endeavor, (p. 112)

But is there not also a 'creative post-science' which seeks validation
of scientific results in the various value and meaning contexts which give
significance to the scientific project itself? For, even after the scientific
validation process has been applied, its results also must meet the
intuitive criteria for coherent reconnection with other validated pro-
ducts of the method. In this relationship of creative validation which is
pre- and post-scientific, we find a correlate to phenomenology. The
phenomenological process not totally dissimilar to the creative one
operates along lines of inherent validation: necessity, intuitive
coherence, and heuristically suggestive of the next paths to follow. Like
the creative process, but as a well thought-out method which has the
essential quality of reversibility, phenomenology is both a pre- and
post-scientifically validating enterprise.

One of the reasons offered by Guilford to explain the psychology's
retarded interest in creativity was the lack of adequate criteria. Al-
though the products are enormously different in quality, both a child's
doodle and a Rembrandt painting can legitimately quality as 'creative'
products. Later, Maslow was to extend the word creative to a
'productless' but recognizable style of personal growth which he dis-
cerned among his 'self-actualizing' subjects. Harmon and Rheingold

MikeArons 31

(1984) see in the same creative process two distinct possible paths, one
towards tangible art (science, etc.) and the other towards mysticism.
Little wonder that creativity is so difficult to define.

Yet its recognized presence everywhere, even at the heart of a
science which denied it in its subjects, reveals the fuller socio-historical
significance of a rediscovered creativity. It is a reminder of the inex-
haustibility of the human subject when researched by the human sub-
ject. Yet the very limits which forecast an ultimate inexhaustibility,
provide the steps of potential coherence from which the phenomeno-
logist moves systematically towards the inexhaustible. Each step
provides simultaneously coherence which reveals its limits and new
potentially meaningful directions. For as creativity has two sides, one of
product and one of personal growth, so also does phenomenology,"
which reciprocally in process reveals the subject studied and the subject
inquiring. Neither is the same afterwards. Nowhere in sight is the
'definitive' study which rests as the ideal for the naive-arrogant scientific
psychology which had, until its household encounter with creativity,
monopolized the twentieth century.

It appears to me that what is required if we are to achieve a larger
view of science which incorporates different forms if inquiry and still
avoids a 'tolerant' but sterile eclecticism, is a hermeneutic seeking the
integrity of. different methodological 'missions' their uniqueness
as well as an understanding of the greater integrity which links their
discontinuities. Such a hermeneutic could well begin with an inquiry into
the questions of distancing, validation and progress in natural science,
human science, personal self-understanding and creativity.

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Asch, S. E. (1952). Social psychology. New York: Prentice-Hall.
Barron, F. (1963). Creativity and psychological health. Toronto: Van Nostrand.
Barron, F. & Young, H. B. (1970). Rome and Boston: A tale of two cities.

Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 1, 91-114.
Boirel, R. (1961). L'Invention. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Bronowski, J. (1958). The creative process. Scientific American, 199, 59-65.
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Doubleday.
Einstein, A. (1934). Essays in science. New York: The Philosophical Library.

32 Creativity and the Methodological Debate

Freud, S. (1968). Moses and monotheism. In J. Strachey (Ed.). The standard

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Knowing the Other in Self Psychology:

A Comparative Dialogue between

Heinz Kohut and Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Robert J. Masek

Self psychology holds that self-object relationships form the es-
sence of psychological life from birth to death, that a move from
dependence (symbiosis) to independence (autonomy) in the
psychological sphere is no more possible, let alone desirable, than
a corresponding move from a life dependent on oxygen to a life
independent of it in the biological sphere. (Kohut, 1984, p. 46)

This statement, concerning the nature of our relations to others, is
at the very foundation in the architecture that comprises all other self
psychological theory and practice. Directly stated, our relationship with
others is undivided, a unit, a Gestalt, a structure, and this is true of both
normal and disordered relations to other people. With respect to disor-
dered life, Kohut has described the novel peculiarities expressed
through narcissistic forms of transference, where structural deficits in a
patient's psychological life exist and are expressed as innocences requir-
ing completion through the blind appropriation of other people, situa-
tions, and things into the very psychological tissue of the self. Others
are not initially seen as independent beings having their own identity,
centers of initiative, and personal limits, but as extensions of the self

34 Knowing the Other in Self Psychology

(Kohut, 1977). Normal development and health, in turn, also reveal this
inseparability of us and others, but this time in and through relations
that we freely choose and are enjoyably involved. These are important
occasions that allow us to occupy and share authentic moments of
mirroring, confirmation, genuine greatness, purpose, strength, and
calmness, and that allow us to touch our commonness and belongingness
together as people (Kohut, 1984).

These instances exist in everyday life and in the vocational, social,
cultural, and spiritual currents of our existence. Self psychology, there-
fore, has a great deal to say about all these sectors of our life because
their inspiration, intrinsic meanings, and forms of appreciation by other
people are infused with selfobject relations, albeit of a higher order of
structuration. Accordingly, in disorder as in health, in everyday life as
in high cultural forms of expression, we are indivisibly related to other
people and a world through self-selfobject relations.

The informed reader may have already spotted a convergence
between how self psychology depicts the undividedness of our relations
and the phenomenological rendering of this insight through the notion
of intentionality. Are they the same? Do the remarkable departures of
self psychology from paradigmatic psychoanalysis authentically place
this new psychology within the family of the human sciences, if its
approach is made explicit? Or, is self psychology more genuinely a
liberal, creative extension of the natural science approach which has
cradled psychoanalysis from its founding to the present?

These are some of the questions I have been seeking to answer in
my own research on self psychology (Masek, 1986, 1987, 1989). Their
final answers certainly go beyond the scope of this paper. Accordingly,
for now I want to make one more modest step by addressing the question
raised earlier: Does Kohut's discovery of the undividedness of our
relations correspond to the phenomenological notion of intentionality?
Are they the same? In answering this, I will establish a comparative
dialogue between Kohut and Merleau-Ponty. Our dialogue, however,
must take a circuitous route into a more fundamental question, the
subject of this paper, and the most fundamental one for clinical
psychoanalysis: How do we know the other person?

In answering this, I will first move to critically examine Kohut's
account of how we come to know the other, and to lay bare the
philosophical foundation that informs these issues for self psychology.
Once exposed, is this philosophy, this approach (Giorgi, 1970) of self
psychology, capable of supporting and containing Kohut's clinical dis-
coveries, or does it betray a divorce between the theory and practice,

Robert J. Masek 35

the intentions and their realization, in self psychology. Finally, does this
have consequences for the overriding clinical interest in the therapeutic
situation: the welfare and emancipation of the patient?

Knowing the Other Person in Self Psychology

Kohut (1977) says that we come to know the other person through
empathic perception, or what he calls, "vicarious introspection." This
avenue to the other becomes understandable if we make explicit the
philosophy, implicit in self psychology, which outlines how the other's
psychological life is originally given to us. In this philosophy, the other
person's subjectivity is anterior to and hidden from direct expression,
and is only known through its representations. Freud (1915/1957)
originally inaugurated this position in psychoanalysis when he stated
that we can never know the unconscious directly and in itself; we can
only know its representations. All this informs Kohut's approach to how
the self exists and is known:

We cannot, by introspection and empathy, penetrate to the self per
se; only its introspectively or empathically perceived psychological
manifestations are open to us... we will still not know the essence of
the self as differentiated from its manifestations. (1977, p. 311)

In short, the self is an inner self; hence, the problem becomes, for
the analyst, how this self may be known. This problem, as it is philosophi-
cally framed, is a primary question for all psychology, psychoanalysis,
and philosophies of mind. From this basis, Kohut tells us that vicarious
introspection is a means "to think and feel ourself into the inner life of
another person" (1984, p. 82). In fact, "the idea itself of an inner life of
man, and thus of complex mental states, is unthinkable without our
ability to know via vicarious introspection what the inner life of man
is, what we ourselves and what others think, and feel" (1977, p. 306).
How, then, does this occur? Kohut (1980) explains that we are able to
know the other person emphatically

because they are given to us in terms of the storehouse of the images
and memories that we have acquired through our lifelong previous
acquaintance with the inner world of man through our own intro-
spection (plus, of course, all the relevant experience distant
theories that belong to this dimension of our outlook on the world),
(p. 458)

Accordingly, I can only know the other's psychological life indirectly
as mediated through my own self knowledge, which may or may not be

36 Knowing the Other in Self Psychology

complemented by pregiven theories. When we move shortly to consider
Merleau-Ponty's views on knowing the other, we will see that he con-
verges with Kohut on the centrality of other people in our lives; sees
the subtleties of how others are present to us and through us, as we are
intimately intertwined with them. Yet, he would sharply part from this
philosophy of self other relations, with its view of how we come to know
the psychological life of another person. For now, let me simply state
that this philosophy of self psychology is an account rooted historically
in Freud and extending to present day schools of psychoanalysis. It is
worth repeating in simpler form, this time from the English object-rela-
tions tradition:

Our understanding of others is, at the intellectual level, an inference
based on our knowledge of ourselves... we can know others "on the
inside" by identification, as Home stressed, because we know our-
selves direcdy "on the inside." (Guntrip, 1969, pp. 370-371)

One final point remains before we close our presentation of Kohut
on these themes. This is the question of how we are inseparably linked
to one another. Repeatedly, when Kohut comes to answer this question,
his reply is need. First of all, this is true of the developing child, whose
relations to the parents allow them to function as phase appropriate
extensions of the child's self-first through an empathic reading of its
needs and, second, by providing those functions necessary for the child
to be and do in life. Parents and child are, therefore, co-participants in
the child's initial formation of a sense of self, and their co-dependence
together, in face to face relations or as "insentient others" (Masek,
1984), continues throughout psychological development, as other
people alongside parents also come to be included within the very form
of selfhood that is lived by an individual. We need others, Kohut says,
as we need oxygen in order to survive biologically. Others provide a basis
for the organization of a person's psychological life (Kohut, 1971, 1977,
1984). So central is this role of others that Atwood and Stolorow (1984)
have termed it the essential motive in human conduct others are
utilized in the service of acquiring and maintaining the individual's
organization and structuration of experience. Hence, in self psychology
our inseparability with others is based on our need of them.

Merleau-Ponty's Critical Reply to Kohut

Were he alive and writing today, Merleau-Ponty would show self
psychology the same respect and differential assessment that he

Robert J. Masek 37

evidenced in his ongoing involvement with Freud's psychoanalysis. He
would affirm the role others play in our psychological development,
interpersonal relations, socio-cultural relations, and analysis itself. He
would agree with much of this, for among phenomenological
philosophers, he, too, accorded a fundamental role to our relations with
others through what he called our "co-existence" with them as they
are often subtly infused in the historical, cultural, social, personal, and
yes, therapeutic arenas of our existence. He would agree that our
relations with others are originally undivided, and that we need not
construct this unity, as mainstream analysis has, by taping together
libidinal aims and their respective objects through cathexis. He would
appreciate how the inclusion of other people, places, and things into
the self is the rule, rather than the exception if we define the body
through its open, circular relationships with the world, rather than
through its skin. And, he would clearly see a pathology in the altered
scope of a patient's decentered relations, as he strips the world of its
genuine otherness converting non-self into self in the service of
forming an equilibrium with his milieu.

In short, our relations with others are but one more instance of a
general intentionality showing our inherence in the world, and he would
see that intentionality at work in the self-selfobject structure of our
relations. But he would clearly scrap the philosophy that leads to
explanations of this discovery through recourse to an omniscient,
sovereign self that somehow causes these relations. He would show that
this intellectualist philosophy deprives other people, situations, and
things of their quality of authentic "otherness" from us. Self psychology
is, thereby vulnerable on this issue of other people, and this issue is at
the heart of self psychological practice and theory. Let us see how all
this is so, and then explore the alternative in M erleau-Ponty's approach
to this problem.

Self psychology draws from a Cartesian philosophy which begins
from divorced relations between mind and body, subjectivity and be-
havior, person and world. From this approach, behavior is public, while
subjectivity is private and inaccessible to the direct experience of the
other person. In fact, subjectivity is only known directly from one
viewpoint: my own. That is, I can only know myself directly; however,
because the subjectivity of another person is private and not directly
knowable by me, then knowing them poses a problem. Intellectualist
philosophy argues that we know other people on the basis of our own
self knowledge. The meaning of the other's behavior is decipherable by
first finding a correlate of their behavior in our own "inner" life, then

38 Knowing the Other in Self Psychology

projecting that on to the other's behavior. Within the history of psycho-
logy, this philosophy sponsors the concept of introspection, from Wundt
through contemporary schools, as the only means of knowing the self
directly, and other people indirectly. Earlier I showed how Kohut was
informed by this philosophy in his explanation of empathic perception
and its role in knowing and understanding the patient.

Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) has outlined some of the problems
incurred when this philosophy is invoked to explain issues arising in
psychology and everyday life. For example, he says: "In so far as I
constitute the world, I cannot conceive another consciousness, for it too
would have to constitute the world and at least as regards this other view
of the world, I should not be the constituting agent" (p. 350). Here, the
problem in knowing a genuine other person is evident.. But also evident
is the whole issue of truth, when that becomes disclosed through out
intersubjective sharing of a common world together in our respective
experiences of it: "My awareness of constructing an objective truth
would never provide me with anything more than an objective truth for
me" (p. 355).

All this poses problems for self psychology on both these issues.
For example, the patient's self-selfobject bonding with others, and the
forms of narcissistic transference, are predicated on the radical other-
ness of the analyst to provide those functions that the patient lacks.
Here, we could speak of a narcissism originally expressed through the
patient's lived experience, a "utilitarian" form of perceiving, where the
otherness of the analyst is thematized and used by the patient to achieve
an equilibrium in self-world relations (Masek, 1986). Beyond this, an
affirmation of the genuine otherness of people is crucial to under-
standing all the patient's relations when grasped in their descriptive,
dynamic, and genetic forms. Accordingly, a faithful comprehension of
our relations with others is disallowed when rooted in the explanations
self psychology draws from this philosophical approach, and its question
of truth in actual practice and theory are also compromised. This
account of knowing the other in self psychology expresses ^philosophi-
cal narcissism, in vivid opposition to the centrality Kohut gives to the
role of experience-near, empathic perception as the ground for all other
clinical and theoretical activity (Masek, 1989). Now, while these
problems arise at a very foundational, indeed philosophical, level, they
are wrapped up in the overall approach that self psychology brings to
its work As such, they diffuse like a dye throughout the volume of self
psychology as a whole.

Robert J. Masek 39

Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Knowing the Other

Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) is recognized as having provided
phenomenological psychologists with a more fruitful alternative ap-
proach toward knowing the other through his original conception of the
body subject. This approach radically affirms the fusion of subjectivity
in and through an expressive body, incessantly in undivided relationship
to the world. This is Merleau-Ponty's original variation on the
phenomenological notions of intentionality (Husserl) and Being-in-
the- World (Heidegger). Understanding these issues, like understanding
how we know the other, means first understanding how the lived body
is pivotal. He puts it this way: "If I experience this inhering of my
consciousness in its body and its world, the perception of other people
and plurality of other consciousness no longer present any difficulty"
(p. 351). An example from this Phenomenology of Perception
(1945/1962, p. 150-151) should make this position clear, and help depict
how a direct perception of a genuine other person is possible.

Merleau-Ponty makes the comparison between the relations of
subjectivity to bodily behavior and an artist's subjective intentions to
paint something and the executed painting. The work of art, like the
expressive body, is a focal point of perceived meanings. While the artist
may begin with a private intention in mind, once that intention is
expressed through the work it is no longer private and reducible to the
artist's aims. Rather, as perceived at a gallery, for example, the meaning
of the painting is now public and multiperspectival in its meaning, owing
to the actual perceptual viewpoints of the people present to it. Likewise,
in the lived world, we do not cancel out our meaningful appreciation of
a painting because we are ignorant of the artist's intentions. Instead,
once expressed through the paint and canvas, the meaning of the work
is co-defined by the viewpoints, including the artist's, which spon-
taneously perceive it. Hence, in a manner of speaking, the work, like
our existence as individuals, can be said to exist between the actual
viewpoints present to it or us, including our own. In this sense, the
expressed is never purely personal; expression is also social and poten-
tially shareable when other people are present to us.

In another work (Masek, 1983) I showed how the other person's
viewpoint on us may be present and expressed through any of the varied
forms of perceptual consciousness-whether that be seeing and hearing,
or remembering, imagining, dreaming, or such altered modes as
delusional and hallucinatory experience. The other person may also be
present to us in a submerged, not immediately visible, manner, as an

40 Knowing the Other In Self Psychology

"insentient other." For example, I recall one hospitalized, anhedonic,
schizophrenic patient, who, on recognizing his novel enjoyment in
playing cards with his ward colleagues, was dealt the "King of Hearts,"
which depicted the king with a raised sword. My patient's immediate
experience was overwhelming terror, to the point where the charge
nurse had to immediately sedate him. A session following this revealed
that his own sadistic father, chronically intolerable of his son's well
being, had faced him in that rare moment of enjoyment, and stood ready
to kill it. Here, the card was the father in the same sense that the fallen
horse was the father, if we view differently Freud's (1909/1955) classic
analysis of Little Hans. These events are not understandable by recourse
to projected "representations" or "symbols," as psychoanalysis, in
general, and self psychology, in particular, would have us understand.
However idiosyncratic the meaning, may be, it is immanent in and given
through these appearances, if one stays closely with their description
when pushed to their horizonal limits, and does not confuse the lived
meanings with the conventional "thing."

Merleau Ponty (1945/1962, p. 356) depicts his inherence of subjec-
tivity through expression by the following example:

I perceive the grief or the anger of the other in his conduct, in his
face or in his hands, without recourse to any "inner" experience of
suffering or anger, and because grief and anger are variations of
belonging to the world, undivided between the body and conscious-
ness, and equally applicable to the other person's conduct, visible
in his phenomenal body, as in my own conduct as it is present to
me.

Approached this way, Merleau-Ponty's philosophy allows us to
truly see how a direct experience of the genuine otherness of people is
possible, as we know and take that for granted in everyday life and
analysis.

But this is not enough. Merleau-Ponty also acknowledges that our
experience of the other, like all perceptual experience, is perspectival
and situated. It is perspectival because I always grasp the other person
from some finite point of view, from my own bodily perspective on them,
from my otherness with respect to them. Therefore, I do not know the
other's intentions, desires, or emotional life precisely as he experiences
them. Even in empathy, where I seek an overlap with a patient's
viewpoint, I always grasp him or her from my own standpoint, and always
from within a particular situation, which delimits and contextualizes the
meaning of his or her expressions "The precise content of a gesture

Robert J. Masek 41

is its reference to a situation" (Merleau-Ponty, 1952/1985, p. 45). Fur-
ther, Merleau-Ponty acknowledges a genuine ambiguity in our ex-
perience of the other. For example, while I do have direct access to the
other's anger or grief, I may not perceive what he is angry about or
grieving over until I ask him. Thus, knowing the other also occurs over
time as other perspectives of him are disclosed through dialogue.

In summary, through his original concept of the lived body, Mer-
leau-Ponty is able to show how a direct perception of genuine other
people is possible. In this approach, reflection on our lived through
relations with others would replace and deem unnecessary an intellec-
tualist account, where introspection and projection construct and ex-
plain how I can know a subjectivity seen as originally divorced from me.
In short, these latter operations, unfounded in concrete experience, are
required paraphernalia only if one begins from a Cartesian approach,
thus bypassing direct experience.

Merleau-Ponty on Our Inseparability from Others

A related point I raised earlier with Kohut is the question of how
we are linked to others. Earlier, I showed how sensitively Kohut recog-
nized our inseparability through his clinical discovery of the self-selfob-
ject unity in our relations. In doing so he offered an original formulation
on what the starting point and original data are in psychoanalysis.
Self-object relations are the rule, not the exception, in both disorder and
health. I stated this as an imperfect analogue to an instance of Merleau-
Ponty's intentionality, as that describes our "co-existence" with each
other. Even when we have developmentally distinguished the meanings
of ourself from others, we do that within an inseparable perceptual
relationship to them. Hence, Kohut (1980) is rightly critical of the
implications of Mahler's (1968) understanding of a "separation-in-
dividuation" phase in development, where autonomy from others rather
than freedom in our relations with them is the outcome. However, when
called to account for this unity in our relations, Kohut explains it by
recourse to the need or choice of a person.

By now, I hope the problems with this explanation will be obvious:
both need and choice reduce the phenomenally given to the action of
the person; both, thereby, explain this pregiven unity of relations,
whereas it can only be described; both arise from an intellectualist
position where need sponsors a projection of representations which
create the meaning and function of concrete, clinical events. Both arise
from a way of thinking, a silent philosophy that goes beyond, yet leads

42 Knowing the Other in Self Psychology

to, specific, technical portrayals of motives as the articulated conse-
quences of a drive substrate in psychoanalysis. Finally, both, I believe,
take self psychology into a place it does not want to be, if we remember
Kohut's original aims and intentions. We know he was critical of
drive/defense theory in its more obvious forms (Kohut (1971, 1977,
1980, 1984). Clinical phenomena which show a drive-like, determined
quality to the analyst, he said, are outcomes of an enfeebled, fragmented
self and are not descriptive of a fully functioning one.

Likewise, in his later writings, he clearly saw the limits of drive
theory as a basis for scientific explanation, and, I believe, honestly
struggled for a new approach toward these issues. Were he alive today,
Kohut, I believe, would wish to resolve this conflict in self psychology.

Merleau-Ponty would agree with Kohut's critiques of this approach
for psychoanalysis. For example, in The Structure of Behavior (1963, pp.
137-184), Merleau-Ponty points out that rigid, determined forms of
behavior reflect the relations of a "sick organism." These relations, he
says, reflect a destructuration, a loss or lack of the integration more
characteristic of behavior at the balanced, human order. But he would
also be critical of the role given to choice as a basis for explaining how
we are linked to others in our, integrated relations. Here, the power of
the person's choice becomes absolutized as a determinant, thus ignoring
that we are always in a situation which also genuinely circumscribes,
informs, and co-constitutes our relations to another human being.
Finally, however liberally defined, the philosophy that supports these
explanations cannot escape the scope of causal thinking, which begins
from a decomposition of our inseparability from others in order to
explain it whether that arises from intellectualist or empiricist cur-
rents of Cartesian thought. What self psychology needs is an approach
that affirms this inseparability, our contingency and co-dependence on
others, as well as our individuality in relation to them all this without
straying from the original insights and guiding aims of self psychology.

Contingency and co-dependence are natural consequences of Mer-
leau-Ponty's phenomenology of our interpersonal life. First, contingen-
cy is implied in our relations with each other, as expressive of inten-
tional! ty. For example, the reflecting person discovers that he is present
to himself, that he is a self, through first being present to others and a
world; his reflection is possible by virtue of its contingency on a pre-
reflective, self transcendent experience-o/-someone or something. In
other words, the phenomenological reduction reveals someone who
discovers himself not to be self sufficient, but contingent on, and derived
from, relations that are first lived then known. Seen this way, contingen-

Robert J. Masek 43

cy is original to how we exist otologically, as individuals and colleagues
in this world. This original contingency also makes understandable, for
example, how the narrating analysand cannot describe himself without
already implicating others in the drama of his history, current relations,
and future imaginings; how he can surprise himself in hearing his own
narration of what he has lived through. Second, our co-dependence on
each other is an outcome of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, if we
again examine the role of the body in these relations. For example,
earlier I showed how through the lived, expressive body, the meaning
of my own expressed behavior is potentially shareable and co-defined
by the viewpoints present, including my own. Even my silence, when I
am with others, has a meaning for them as it does for me, and we may
agree or differ on its significance. Hence, following Merleau-Ponty, I
suggested that the real meaning of any concrete behavior is installed
within a situation, and exists between the viewpoints actually or insen-
tiently present, and is open to reflection through them. This is what
Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, p. 57) means when he says "The
phenomenal field is not an 'inner world,' the 'phenomenon' is not a
'state of consciousness,' or a 'mental fact,' and the experience of
phenomena is not an act of introspection." Subjectivity is potentially
shareable, and this obviates the need for a psychology of vicarious
introspection aimed at an interiorized self.

Now, throughout his career, Merleau-Ponty struggled for a new
way to language this ontological co-dependence, which reflects how we
perceptually share and co-define reach other. Like Kohut, Merleau-
Ponty sought original terms for original insights. Accordingly, in his last
work The Visible and the Invisible, he put it this way: "We situate
ourselves in ourselves and in the things, in ourselves and in the other,
at the point where by a sort of chiasm, we become the others and we
become world" (1968, p. 160). Co-dependence is original and intrinsic
to our lived relations with each other. This is also seen if we follow out
the implications of Merleau-Ponty's understanding of perception, as I
did in an earlier comparison between him and Kohut on this issue
(Masek, 1989). For instance, by virtue of the finite viewpoint we, as
individuals, have on our lives, we require the eyes and example of others
with whom we are already intertwined. Herein, would be a convergence
with self psychology, but, as I have shown, Merleau-Ponty's
phenomenology would discover this co-dependence through a radically
different approach.

44 Knowing the Other in Self Psychology

Discussion

Some remarkable points of convergence were shown between
Kohut and Merleau-Ponty, but important differences were also out-
lined. Seeing the analytic relationship, including the vicissitudes of
transference, as an inseparable self -self object unit, which allows an
equilibrium that the patient cannot sustain alone, is a new starting point
and source of data for psychoanalysis. (Masek, 1986, 1987, 1989) Kohut
(19771, 1977, 1984) has been extremely clear in showing how one time
worn concept after another, in mainstream psychoanalysis, must be
revisioned in light of his innovative discoveries. The concrete activity
and aims of the analysis show a corresponding transformation, as he
depicted so well in "The Two Analyses of Mr. Z" (Kohut, (1979). He is
very clear about not wanting to pour new wine into old bottles, by
seeking to jam his innovative insights into a mainstream, drive/defense
approach (Kohut, 1984). Self psychology, he says, has a superordinate
position with respect to mainstream psychoanalysis. That is, should it
choose, self psychology can see and include the insights of the tradition,
but the tradition cannot integrate the unique discoveries of self psycho-
logy. Nevertheless, I showed how Kohut's project was compromised by
the guiding philosophy which self psychology subsumes in its under-
standing of our relating to and knowing of others. I also suggested how
Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology could help overcome many of these
problems by offering an approach which affirms our original link with
people, depicts their genuine otherness from us, and reveals our con-
tingency and co-dependence on them without leaving direct ex-
perience for explanations which construct what is already pregiven in
our experience. I will not review those specific analyses again. Instead,
as part of some concluding remarks I would like to draw out two
additional points I could not make earlier.

First, when self-selfobject relations are examined from within Mer-
leau-Ponty's view of our co-existence, then psychoanalytic practice and
theory become more firmly rooted in the describable interexperience
of the participants. For example, the movement from archaic to mature
forms of relatedness reflects an important change in the patient's
perceptual relationship to that analyst and vice versa. Archaic self object
transferences express a particular singularity in the patient's grasp of his
existence. His life is totalized in his own perspective on it, and recogniz-
ing this, Kohut (1984) speaks of the necessity for an understanding
phase.; the analyst's point of view accords, and empathically moves
within the patient's first person viewpoint, thus sponsoring a oneness,

Robert J. Masek 45

a self-selfobject bond, in his seeing and being seen. Kohut found this
phase to be an absolutely necessary precondition in work with narcis-
sistic personality disorders, before any other work involving what he
called "experience-distant" interpretation could take place. That is,
once this was accomplished in a phase, varying in time from patient to
patient, then sufficient cohesion and continuity was established for the
patient to "tolerate" other forms of intervention. In time, this overcom-
ing of perceptual singularity (archaic narcissism) begins to be expressed
by the patient as an openness to the multiperspectivity of who he is, and
to the analyst as a genuine other, whose viewpoint may not coincide with
the patient's own. Kohut calls this the "explaining phase," and says that
the patient is now open to dynamic, genetic, and structural explanations
of his conduct. Now, if we stay closely with Merleau-Ponty's
phenomenology of perception, as lived in the analytic situation, then we
see something much more fundamental occurring. The movement that
Kohut identifies through the explaining phase is not so much "ex-
perience distant" as it is a flexible shift in the patient's consent to being
co-defined, and, thus, restored to a place within a community of people
who are also other than him. Put differently the patient is able to move
from first person to second and third person viewpoints, which differ
from his own, and all this is directly describable within the clinical
process. This is immediately evident when grasped from an altered
approach to our relations with others, an approach more firmly rooted
in our lived experience of them.

The second point is broader in scope, and pertains to the focus of
self-selfobject relations. When Kohut speaks of the inseparability of our
relations, he emphasizes the interpersonal as the area of that unity.
True, he speaks of an "extrospection," which is our perception of things,
rather than people (1984, p. 32). But the centrality of other people is
priorized in self psychology's dynamic, genetic, and structural accounts,
and the peopled transference becomes a focus in understanding the
patient's psychological life. Now, within psychoanalysis, Searles (1965)
has questioned this focus, showing it to be a major presupposition in
psychoanalysis and social psychologies as well. In contrast, he argues
well for the necessity of including the non-human environment in our
understanding of the patient; using case examples, he vividly depicts its
significance in both our ongoing development and current relations.
Merleau-Ponty, and phenomenological psychologists in general, would
agree with him. They would point out, from a different direction, that
intentionality certainly includes our relations with others, but it also
goes beyond them. Merleau-Ponty would describe perceptual con-

46 Knowing the Other in Self Psychology

sciousness as an opening onto the world not simply others. Hence,
faithfully understanding the patient requires beginning from an ap-
proach that allows supreme openness to all the presences in the
patient's world, as he describes them, without closing them off in
advance. Van den Berg (1972), for example, has shown this openness
in his own phenomenological analysis of a patient. He depicts how
alterations in a patient's behavior are preceded by alterations in his
world through changes in how things, other people, lived time and
space, and the patient's own body appear and have meanings which
contextualize and allow a rich understanding of his behavior.

Accordingly, Merleau-Ponty would argue for a greater openness at
the base, in the approach of self psychology. He would suggest that this
approach be dilated to accommodate these other genuine dimensions
in a patient's life. In turn, his own philosophy would be greatly enriched
by many of the clinical discoveries of self psychology. He would ap-
preciate more deeply how experience possesses a developmental struc-
turation, and expresses a sedimented layering of former times, places,
and people. He would see more concretely how other people and things
are invisibly infused in our psychological life, and expressed through the
equilibriums we strike in our living. He would also see what self psychol-
ogy is aiming at when it distinguishes itself from interpersonal and
object-relations approaches in psychoanalysis: self psychology has its
subject matter in the specific "functions' chronically sought by the
patient and perceptually thematized in selfobject presences. In all this,
Merleau-Ponty would affirm an incipient psychology of structures,
rooted first in how the patient both regularly and rigidly circumscribes
what is available to him through his perceptual consciousness of the
world. Finally, the personal consequences of our not faithfully reading
each other, and then carrying that over into our actions, might affirm
again, and give added flesh to, his thesis of the "primacy of perception."
In these and other ways, Merleau-Ponty would learn much from self
psychology, and, thereby, deepen his own philosophy. In its own turn,
this philosophy could provide implications for a new approach, tailored
to the interests, aims, and scope of self psychology.

References

Atwood, G. & Stolorow, R. (1984). Structures of subjectivity. Hillsdale, NJ: The

Analytic Press.
Freud, S. (1955). Analysis of a phobia in a five year old boy. In J. Strachey (Ed.

and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of

Robert J. Masek 47

Sigmund Freud. (Vol. 10, pp 5-147). London: Hogarth Press. (Original

work published 1909).
Freud, S. (1957). The unconscious. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.) The standard

edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. (Vol. 14, pp.

159-204). London: The Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1915).
Giorgj, A. (1970). Psychology as a human science: A phenomenologicalfy based

approach. New York: Harper & Row.
Guntrip, H. (1969). Schizoid phenomena: Object relations and the self. New

York: International Universities Press.
Kohut, H. (1971). The analysis of the self. New York: International Universities

Press.
Kohut, H. (1977). The restoration of the self. New York: International Univer-
sities Press.
Kohut, H. (1979). The two analyses of Mr. Z. International Journal of

psychoanalyze, 60, 3-18.
Kohut, H. (1980). Two letters. In A. Goldberg (Ed.), Advances in self psychology

(pp. 449-469). New York: International Universities Press.
Kohut, H. (1984). How does analysis cure? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mahler, M. (1968). On human symbiosis and the vicissitudes of individuation.

New York: International Universities Press.
Masek, R. J. (1983). Outline for a dialogal perspective in phenomenological

psychoanalysis. In A. Giorgi, A. Barton, & C. Maes (Eds.), Duquesne

studies in phenomenological psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 71-82). Pittsburgh:

Duquesne University Press.
Masek, R. J. (1984). Phenomenology of the unconscious. In C. Aanstoos (Ed.).

Exploring the lived word (pp. 49-64). Studies in the Social Sciences, 24.
Masek, R. J. (1986). Self psychology as psychology: The revision of Heinz Kohut.

Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 6, 22-30.
Masek, R. J. (1987). Reading psychoanalytic developments contextually: A

reply to Bocknet on Kohut. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 7,

43-48.
Masek, R. J. (1989). On Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the psychology of the self.

In D. W. Detrick & S. P. Detrick (Eds.), Self psychology: Comparisons and

contrasts (pp. 175-192). Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). The phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.).

New York: Humanities Press. (Original work published 1945).
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1963). The structure of behavior (A. L. Fisher Trans.).

Boston: Beacon Press. (Original work published 1945).
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible (C. Lefort, Ed., A. Lingis,

Trans.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1985). The experience of others (F. Evans & H. Silverman

Trans.). Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, 18, 33-63.

(Original work inscribed as lecture notes 1952)
Searles, H. (1965). The non human environment in normal development and

schizophrenia. New York: International Universities Press.
Van den Berg, J. H. (1972).vl different existence. Pittsburgh: Duquesne Univer-
sity Press.

The Luminous Diamond of Knowing

Kaisa Puhakka

What does it mean to know something, to really know? This
question has been a central concern for philosophy, psychology and the
other human sciences. These disciplines have provided descriptions of
the process of knowing that usually focus on its conditions or context,
and its objects. The present chapter will inquire into the meaning not
of that which is known, but of knowing itself, in whatever context it may
occur and with whatever objects it may be concerned.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the symbol for knowing (prajna) is the
diamond (vajra) whose clarity and luminous transparency is unparal-
leled by anything else and whose power to penetrate and cut through
the thickest and toughest of materials exceeds that of all other things.
Like the diamond, knowing is multi-faceted, yet each facet reveals the
diamond as a whole. On the other hand, if one facet is covered with dust,
the entire diamond loses its transparency and luminosity. So it is with
knowing. In its essence, knowing is whole; confusion, however partial,
occludes the whole. The central theme of this chapter is the celebration
of knowing as the act that connects one to being and is the wellspring
of meaning itself.

Knowing is not usually thought of as having such power. This is
because it is taken to be either a reflective activity such as remembering,
categorizing, inferring, etc., or a pre-reflective, spontaneous or habitual,
response. In contrast, knowing is here taken to be a matter oiawareness.

Kaisa Puhakka 49

As such it is not propositional, not a conceptual or linguistic product,
but rather it is prior to any conceptual formulation. Indeed, it occurs
precisely when habitual responding or the activities usually associated
with mind cease. In relation to the world it appears that, ultimately,
knowing as awareness is not other than being; the two converge in a
moment of direct, intuitive seeing in which the distinction between
seeing and being disappears altogether (Radhakrishnan, 1940). Usually,
however, knowing stops short of such ultimate convergence of seeing
and being, but even then it connects the knower to the world in a manner
far more direct than anything that can be accomplished by habitual
responses or by the conceptual and linguistic activities of the mind.

A contemplation of "awareness" as a source of knowing can be a
baffling, frustrating affair. For "awareness" is devoid of any content.
The gesture of grasping for something flails in thin air; there is nothing
to be gotten hold of there. This chapter explores the connection be-
tween the "nothingness" of awareness and the "everythingness" of the
world in the act of knowing. The affirmation of a nonconceptual,
nonlinguistic act of knowing certainly flies in the face of the current
postmodern notion that everything we are and claim to know is cultural-
ly and linguistically contextualized. Indeed, the affirmation of any kind
of real knowing seems out of step with the cynical malaise or "happy
nihilism" (Kvale, 1990) as the case may be which postmodern
deconstructions have left in their wake. Yet, precisely because it spares
so little and renders transparent so much, the postmodern criticism of
knowledge may in fact provide the first step toward the recovery of the
luminous diamond of knowing.

The Perils of Knowing

It is a difficult road to recovery, however. Most people know very
little, believe that they are capable of knowing even less, and often
prefer to know not at all. Uneducated people consider themselves not
to know because of their lack of education. Educated people appeal to
their education for the reasons why they don't know and why nobody
else knows, either. Anyone who claims to know something rather than
just be informed about what others presumably know is viewed with
suspicion. Why is such an ambivalent, fearful attitude toward knowing
so prevalent? What are the dangers that loom large about knowing?

Most people do not mind being "well informed," that is, knowing
"the facts." Being informed is generally acceptable, even desirable.
Parents, teachers and employers all want to be "informed." One of the

50 The Luminous Diamond of Knowing

most effective ways of winning an argument or putting people "in their
place" is to let them know that they are not informed, not in possession
of "the facts." Facts are something everybody can agree upon. Being
informed is how one becomes a team-player in the games of life.

By contrast, knowing is something that does not essentially depend
on agreements and, indeed, sometimes happens in spite of the agreed-
upon facts. All great and profound visions, whether in the realm of
philosophy, art of religion, are voiced with at least a certain amount of
disregard for the facts that everybody agrees on. Those who give voice
to them stand out and stand alone. When the disregarding of facts
becomes too blatant, one risks being ridiculed or even ostracized by
others. At the very least, a person who knows and lets others know that
he or she knows is a whistle blower, a game stopper who is despised by
the loyal team players. We do not need to think of Galileo (who survived
by submitting to the official "facts") or Giordiano Bruno (who did not
submit and did not survive) to appreciate the dangers of knowing.
Knowing that uncovers dark secrets is dangerous. But far more perilous
is the knowing that penetrates through what is openly displayed, for such
knowing does not merely expose the agreements that divide but shatters
those that bind. The wrenching predicament of one who is on the verge
of shattering such agreements is described by R.D. Laing (1970, p. 1) as
follows: "they are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game.
If I show them that I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will
punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game." If
knowing can be dangerous in the convoluted games of interpersonal
relationships, how much more so in the big games of nations and of the
world at large! Knowing, then, is a subversive act. It is the last taboo that
remains after all the others, against sex, against asserting oneself, even
against having one's own opinions have been lifted. Parents encourage
children to do well, to be smart, to learn their lessons, even think for
themselves, but parents seldom encourage children to "know for them-
selves." One who claims to know is worse than defiant: he or she is
possibly mad. The consequences of being judged mad by society are not
something most people would be willing to confront. Small wonder that
few would dare admit to really knowing anything.

The Perversion of Knowing and the Postmodern Critique

Knowing is brought into being by and for the individual alone, in
the direct connectedness between the knower and the known in the
actuality of the here and now. It is for this reason that knowing is an

KaisaPuhakka 51

inherently revolutionary act. It involves a radical individualism which
cannot be tolerated in society. The history of civilization, of our educa-
tional and cultural institutions, is, among other things, a story of the ways
in which knowing has been perverted and its inherent power usurped
for political ends. Marcuse, Adorno, Foucault, and other critical think-
ers have analyzed ways in which the perversions of knowing coerce,
co-opt and seduce individuals into believing that they are knowing
authentically when in fact they are submitting to or agreeing with the
instruments of their own oppression.

The perversion of knowing no doubt goes back to times immem-
orial, to the beginning of organized human societies. But it attained
unprecedented success with the rise of science during the age of moder-
nity. Having already given up their faith in their own capacity to know
to the authorities of their social and political, and especially religious,
institutions, people now lost trust in anybody's capacity to know. With
the rise of science, personal knowing of any kind was systematically
replaced by impersonal "scientific knowledge." The cardinal doctrine
of scientific methodology is that the less knowing depends on the
personal involvement of the knower, the better and more reliable is the
knowledge.

This insistence on extrinsic legitimation leads to a curious predica-
ment, namely, that any claims to knowing have to be backed up by proofs
to the effect that those involved in the project of knowing really aren't
the ones who know. In light of this predicament, the ideal approach to
knowing becomes the "double-blind" study in which neither the re-
searcher nor the human subject whose experience is under investigation
knows what is really going on. Thus is born a truly anon-ymous knowing.
But a new mystery is also created: what constitutes such knowing? And,
since a valid and reliable answer to that question must obviously also be
anonymous, the query continues: just how is the answer to it known to
be an instance of legitimate knowing? As Kvale (1990) has noted, "the
more one legitimates, the greater the need for further legitimation." (p.
37) The ground of knowing to which we as knowers have no direct access
is a chimera sustained by faith and nothing else.

The current postmodern Zeitgeist has lost this faith. The great
epistemological schemas and "grand narratives" upon which the legi-
timacy of anonymous knowing had rested have fallen by the wayside
(Lyotard, 1975; Kvale, 1990). One might think this to be an occasion for
the restoration of the direct connection between the knower and the
known. But not so. The postmodern critique obliterates the last rem-
nants of personal knowing. While modern philosophy and science

52 The Luminous Diamond of Knowing

reduced the knower to impotency and sheer irrelevancy, postmodern
thought virtually wipes him out of existence. The knower is found to be
just a link in the endless, criss-crossing chains of culturally and linguis-
tically produced modes of engagement variously called "narratives"
(Lyotard, 1975; Kvale, 1990), "games," or "discourses" (Lather, 1990).
The authors of these narratives, the designers of the games, the creators
of the discourses have disappeared into the context, if not the text itself,
of the narrative. They have become the players of the games, the objects
as much as the subjects of discourse. Lather (1990) describes the "self'
as becoming

both site and subject, produced by diffuse forms of power. The
subject is constantly figured and refigured within a context of
bombardment by conflicting messages... spawned by the intensified
sign production of consumer society, (p. 77)

In a similar vein, Lovlie (1990) describes the self as "the prolifera-
tion of roles, the progressive showing of (sur)faces" (p. 1 1 1). Reflection,
the last bastion of the modern self, also fails to secure its individuality,
The self that knows its self-descriptions to be relative to the linguistic
and cultural contexts and situations has no privileged status among the
proliferation of roles and surfaces. Lovlie ( 1 990, p. 1 1 1 ) goes on to claim
that

The irony of such knowing does not counter of invalidate the
self-description indefinitely in a progress ad infinitum, the self cap-
tured only in the play of new roles, the reflective "I" but one of them.

The postmodern critique comes to its conclusion with the
deconstruction of the subject. A subject that is "constantly figured and
refigured" is no longer a subject but has been turned into an object. An
object is something that shows surfaces to a view from the outside. In
modern scientific thought, the inside view was discredited and set aside.
The knower was severed from knowing and left idling, presumably to
enjoy the fruits of knowledge that he or she did not produce, of
anonymous knowledge to which no one has an inside access. /Still, in
modern thought the knower could reflect and recover a sense of self,
however irrelevant this was to anybody other than itself. But
postmodern critique shows that anonymous knowledge, like an ever-
spreading swamp, has seeped back and swallowed up the knower itself,
including its self-reflection.

Kaisa Puhakka 53

The Opening of Inquiry: Beyond the Postmodern Hubris

The essence of hubris is a transcendental claim that puts an end to
inquiry and the possibility of knowing. Conversely, knowing can be
rehabilitated by opening up inquiry into the transcendental claim. Post-
modern deconstruction of knowledge conveys an ambivalence regard-
ing transcendental claims. But if such claims can be let go completely
and unequivocally, then the postmodern critique, with the unprece-
dented thoroughness of its deconstruction of the presuppositions of
knowledge, can provide a radical opening to knowing.

What is meant by "transcendental claim" here needs to be clarified.
The scope of such a claim "transcends" the domain of actual or possible
inquiry, as specified by the claim itself. Kant (1781/1929) in his "an-
tinomies of Pure Reason" was the first in the West to articulate this
feature of transcendence in metaphysical claims and to point out their
inherent contradictoriness. But in his defense of the prevailing modern
scientific worldview Kant himself made transcendental claims regarding
the synthetic a priori truths (i.e. truths that are not trivially or tautologi-
cally true but which tell us something about the world and yet are
necessarily true). The Kantian a priori truths could not be questioned
until the worldview whose foundations they described (and justified)
were questioned. The lesson from Kant may have been too quickly
dismissed by post-Kantian and postmodern thinkers who consider them-
selves to be "only describing," not seeking to defend or justify any
"worldviews." For, really, what are descriptions if not implicit legitima-
tions of "how things are," of worldviews? This appears especially the
case when the need for ontological considerations beyond description
is denied, when "surfaces" are said to be all that there is.

The transcendental claim of postmodern criticism is contained in
the notion of the everpresence of localized linguistic and cultural
contexts. The postmodern repudiation of "metanarratives" precludes
the possibility of any universal claims. Yet such claims are implicit, for
example, in the statement by Lovlie (1990, p. Ill) cited earlier.

An inquiry that opens up to knowing asks: How is the act of
self-reflection known to be just another culturally and linguistically
contextualized enactment of a role? The assumption that self-reflection
involves an infinite regress is based on the premiss that the reflection
has a culturally and linguistically conditioned object, not only factually
and contingently, but necessarily, thus, a priori. And if this is true, then
of course the act of reflection is also culturally and linguistically contex-

54 The Luminous Diamond of Knowing

tualized. But how does one go about establishing the aforementioned
premiss? By definitional fiat or by actual inquiry?

Because of hubris, inquiry terminates in a truth claim rather than
knowing. As Adorno (1973) and Foucault (1980) have shown, such
claims soon degenerate into jargon and buzz words by which cherished
ideas like "authenticity" or "self' actualization" are coopted to serve
the "status quo or the anonymous powers behind it. The postmodern
criticism claims that there is nothing to be co-opted because everything
already has been, is, and of necessity will be co-opted in the sense of
being contextually determined by language and culture. Will the hubris
of postmodernism insist on this claim as the last word?

If not, then the postmodern criticism of knowledge can be a prelude
to genuine knowing. For in showing the relativity and indeed insubstan-
tiality of all claims of objectified knowledge, including our subjectively
held but no less objectified ideas and notions regarding the knower and
known, postmodern thought prepares the ground for the possibility of
real knowing. In so doing, it undertakes an endeavor in the West that is
similar to Nagarjuna's dialectic in the East. Nagarjuna showed through
his relentless dialectic the inner contradictoriness and "voidness" of all
universal claims. (Inada, 1970; Murti, 1987). Universal claims hold their
sway in the implicit notions people live by and take to be only descrip-
tions of how things are," and it is these notions that are taken up for
scrutiny by the dialectic. Nothing is spared, for the purpose is to prepare
the ground for knowing (prajna). That is why Nagarjuna's dialectic ends
in silence rather than a transcendental claim about the constitution of
either knowledge or reality.

The most heroic of philosophic endeavors is the attempt to articu-
late the limits of what is articulable. In the West, radical deconstruc-
tionists such as Derrida (1973) are doing just that. Reaching beyond
what would ordinarily be taken as the fundamentals of conceptual
thought and language, namely, sameness and difference. Derrida at-
tempts to articulate the common (same?) root of the difference be-
tween these in his concept of differance, only to find himself writing
about "the constitution of primordial temporality" as well as of "primor-
dial spatiality." He recognizes the appropriate place for such articula-
tions to be "in transcendental language which is not longer adequate
here." (p. 130) But where does one go from here? Derrida's deconstruc-
tion ends, it seems, in the "irreducibility of temporalizing" as well as
"spacing" just short of articulating the transcendental claim except as a
counterfactual, i.e. how this irreducibility "would be called" (p. 130) in
the transcendental language which he in fact does not use because of

Kaisa Puhakka 55

its inadequacy. This is a tortuous balancing act between, on the one
hand, a transcendental claim that reflexively turns back on all of lan-
guage and, on the other hand, the silence of nothingness when one
refrains from making such a reflexive turn. In the Buddhist tradition
within which Nagarjuna's dialectic was conceived, silence is natural and
effortless because it is taken to be just that: silence. In the West, silence
is a problem; it is viewed with suspicion as "mysticism," and "mysticism"
carries the connotation of intellectual irresponsibility, of giving up
clarity of understanding, of refusal to articulate what can be articulated.
Such uneasiness with silence betrays the Western insistence on talk and
articulation as the last word, the insistence on the word as being last.

On the other hand, letting go of the hubris of the transcendental
claim frees one to not only celebrate "margins," "differences," and
"otherness," but also to recognize, in Huston Smith's (1989) words, that
"we would not honor the otherness of the Other if we did not also
recognize her identity within us." (p. 239). Letting go of even the
balancing act between making and not making transcendental claims,
free-falling into silence, at last loosens knowing from the grip of cultural
and linguistic context.

Postmodern deconstructions thus prepare the ground for genuine
knowing by removing all grounds, by leaving the knower with nothing
to stand on, not even the idea of himself or herself as the "reflecting
agent." The last of the Cartesian ghosts is dispelled, dispersed all over
the context and structure of the "thinking" of the "thinking thing."
When even the last claim about differance dissolves into its context of
nondifferance, then inquiry has done its job, the last debris of thought
has been cleared up, and nothing is left.

The nothing that is left is a silence of pure transparency. This
transparency is not something that can be thought of or even seen. For
something to be an object of seeing, some degree of opaqueness is
required. Pure transparency is not something that is seen, but through
it everything else is seen. Transparency is thus not itself an object but
that which allows objects to be seen. This transparency is the luminous
diamond of knowing of which the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhists speak.

The Three Facets of Knowing

While the transparency of knowing defies description, there are
certain qualities associated with experiences that partake of this trans-
parency. One could think of these as the facets of the diamond. The
three facets of knowing to be described here are: power, joy, and

56 The Luminous Diamond of Knowing

connectedness or intimacy. There may be others as well, but these three
are chosen here for the special luminosity that they seem to possess and
the readiness with which they reveal something about knowing.

The transparency of knowing is not grounded in anything, but it
bestows, and can restore, the groundedness of one's being in the world.
In this lies its power. Knowing is not a matter of the "subject" vis-a-vis
the flat, opaque surface of an already construed "object," whether a
physical thing, an idea, or a structure of meanings. Rather, knowing is
a three-dimensional affair involving an unbroken continuum from here
("knower") to there ("known") that both reaches and reveals in depth.
One who partakes of such knowing is infused with power. For one is
now touching the world directly. Witness the intensity and exhilaration
of the first "discoveries" of a child exploring the world.

The loss and subsequent restoration of one's power and grounded-
ness of being is illustrated by the following psychotherapy patient. The
patient was in psychotherapy with the author for a period of six years.
She had been previously diagnosed as schizophrenic. This patient was
convinced that she was "invisible" and on occasion expressed doubt as
to whether she existed at all. She also complained of not being capable
of knowing anything at all, not even whether the rest of the world
existed. The restoration of her knowing began when she, with her
therapist's instruction, began torn simply look at physical objects around
her, with full attention, one at a time. She "looked" with her eyes as well
as her hands (i.e. by touching). Eventually she saw them with the
conviction that she indeed wa seeing them. She was later able to "look"
at her family and "see" how her father who has sexually molested her
for years pretended he had not, thereby invalidating her knowing that
he had; how her mother, unable to bear knowing about the molestation
and unable to bear the presence of her daughter pretended the girl did
not exist, thereby invalidating her existence and rendering her "in-
visible."

With the blossoming of her own authentic knowing, this patient's
past was rendered increasingly transparent and her own being, which
she now described as "solid" became increasingly grounded in the world.
For her, the solidity of the self was a triumph of knowing that em-
powered her to live in the world. In other situations, the solidities and
opaqueness within the self itself can be rendered transparent, thus
freeing up the power locked therein.

Knowing is a joyful experience. Witness someone having an insight.
A face that just moments ago appeared preoccupied suddenly breaks
into a smile that conveys pure joy. The spontaneous smile, however

Kalsa Puhakka 57

momentary and subtle, is the incontrovertible sign that an insight has
occurred. Even a recollection of past moments of insight can bring a
reflection of that smile on a person's face.

Bliss (anandd) is recognized in the Hindu spiritual disciplines as an
essential accompaniment of the kind of knowing that transcends all
duality and joins the knower (chit = consciousness) to the known (sat
= existence). A glimpse of this bliss is reflected in the smiles that
accompany our everyday insights. The joy of knowing is a pure pleasure
that extracts none of the costs associated with other, more sensuous
pleasures. The latter have to do with grasping objects, immersing one-
self in the thick of things that produce sensations and emotions, and the
price one mush eventually pay in one way or another has to do with the
loss of the things grasped. In contrast, the joy of knowing has to do with
letting go of things and the lightness of being that comes with letting go.

Knowing that reaches out and reveals connects us to the world.
Thus knowing intimately joins one being to another. Knowing can
bridge the gap between subject and object. In love and friendship, one
is not just informed about the other but actually knows him or her. There
is a unique sense of aliveness, connectedness and intimacy in such an
act of knowing which is not present when one is just being informed.
Polanyi (1969) talks about the act of understanding as an "interioriza-
tion" or "indwelling" which "causes us to participate feelingly in that
which we understand" (pp. 148-149). He goes on to say, "these feelings
of comprehension go deep; we shall see them increasing in profundity
all the way from the T-it' relation to the 'I-Thou' relation" (p. 149).
Examples of intimate knowing that readily stand out come from per-
sonal relationships. But the same intimacy of knowing is possible with
a rock, a tree, or an empty Coca-Cola can cast by the roadside. When
any being, whether construed as living or nonliving, is known in this
direct, personal manner, there comes about a joyful, empowering con-
nectedness between the knower and the known.

Interdependency of power, joy and intimacy in knowing is evident
from every instance of knowing ne may contemplate. A life style of
cultivating knowing is richer, happier, and more fulfilling than a lifestyle
of being merely informed about the world, in which one lives vicariously
off of other people's knowing but always remains an outsider, a mere
voyeur of the love affair with the world that knowing is. Nevertheless,
knowing rarely occurs even to those who value its gifts. The paradox of
knowing is that it is effortless and spontaneous when it is present, yet
when it is not it seems ephemeral and altogether beyond reach.

58 The Luminous Diamond of Knowing

An Invitation to Knowing

Knowing involves both a "looking" that reaches out with interest
and a "seeing" which embraces what is given. But only when these arise
from the empty space prior to the constitution of objects does knowing
really take place.

An opening to this space is, then, the first step, indeed, the only
necessary "step" that must be taken before knowing spontaneously
occurs. The act of reflection contains within it the possibility of moving
into this space. More often than not, however, reflection in a reflexive
turning back immediately closes the gap and fills the space with objects.
In the Western philosophical and phenomenological traditions the act
of reflection is understood and, indeed, defined through its engagement
with objects, whether "physical" things or meaning structures. The
disengagement just prior to the engagement, just prior to the comple-
tion of the reflexive "turning back" upon the object, is what Husserl
called epoche. It is this disengagement, epoche, that is at the basis of
even as simple an act of reflection as "remembering," (Schutz, 1976, p.
47) for it is what lifts the experience out of its pre-reflective duration.
And it is what is responsible for the freedom bestowed upon thinking
by the act of self-reflection that was celebrated by Husserl (1913/1931).
One wonders whether it may also be what puzzled Heidegger
(1927/1962) about the act of "seeing phenomenologically" which he
painstakingly learned from Husserl (Ihde, 1986). Certainly, the taking
of Being itself as the object of reflection requires a profound disengage-
ment and distancing not only from this or that experience, but the entire
domain of lived experience as well as reflections on such experience.

What, then, is involved in the disengagement? Just prior to turning
back on the object, the reflexive movement of awareness had moved
away, distanced itself, not only from that particular object but all objects.
At that moment there is an opening of space that is radically empty of
all designations, of objects as well as boundaries of thought or percep-
tion. The trouble with that moment is that it may have lasted less than
a split second and most likely was not noticed by the person before his
attention was focused back on the object. Only a trace of that space may
be present in the "feeling" that accompanies reflection, namely, that it
is a turning back. But whence came it back, such that its turning could
be felt? In the "whence" of that turning are intimations of nothingness,
of vast, unoccupied spaces.

But ordinary consciousness, in William James' (1989/1983)unsur-
passed description, reveals no gaps, no spaces. The stream of conscious-

Kaisa Puhakka 59

ness is continuous, one thought or image follows upon another without
a gap; between thoughts there are no empty spaces, only "fringes" of
thoughts that in their moment of passing are already transforming into
other thoughts. However, James's very "seeing" of the fringes and
transitions of consciousness was itself a modification, in the sense that
implied a distancing from the state of affairs he was describing. One may,
then, well inquire as to the possibility of further modification of con-
sciousness or experience such that might reveal the spaces from within
which "looking" and "seeing" arise.

For the inquiry to proceed from here, the practical disciplines for
the transformation of noetic consciousness developed in the Eastern
traditions are invaluable. A central practice in the Theravada Buddhist
discipline is the vipassana or "insight" meditation (Goldstein, 1976;
Khantipalo, 1987; Sayadaw, 1984). The practitioner is instructed to
focus attention on the rising and falling of the abdomen as one breathes
in and out. Whenever sensations, thoughts, or feelings arise, one is to
merely notice them and return attention to the rising and falling of the
abdomen. How is insight attained and cultivated by a meditation whose
overt goal is to merely keep attention focused on the physical process
of breath? The point of this meditation is to anchor the wandering mind
and still the stream of consciousness enough so that its movements can
be "noticed." This art of noticing is similar to the act of reflection in that
it takes as its object that with which it was previously involved. But it
differs from reflection in that it does not attach itself to this object but
immediately disengages and returns to the rising and falling of the
breath. These moments of disengagement, at first rare and fleeting,
open up the space between thoughts. As the meditation progresses,
thoughts and sensations, which ar first were simply "given," are now
seen as arising and passing away (Sayadaw, 1984). Eventually, with the
progressive stilling of the mind and the sharpening of the "noticing" the
space between thoughts begins to open up more and more. In the
emptiness of that space, subtle things previously unseen now appear.
The acts of intention in their various modes of reflection that previously
defined the focus and horizons of what was seen are now themselves
seen.

The foundation for insight, then, is emptiness and openness. With
the emptying out of all the clutter of preoccupations and preconcep-
tions, of meandering thoughts and images, comes an openness to know-
ing. Thus it is grounded in nothing other than itself. The emptiness of
the space within which knowing arises is the measure of its purity. The
connection between space and direct, intuitive seeing is appreciated by

60 The Luminous Diamond of Knowing

inquirers after such knowing in various traditions (e.g. Tulku, 1977;
Merrell-Wolff, 1944/1983).

But knowing is not a mystery inaccessible to all but a few privileged
souls, nor is it a rare prize to be won by arduous discipline and effort.
From the glimpses of insight enjoyed in everyday life it is clear that no
effort and no grasping is involved in knowing. Consider, once again the
experience of insight. What goes on when one has an insight into
something, sees something in a way never seen before? Before the
seeing, there is usually a sudden gasp for air, a deeper than usual
inhalation that accompanies the embracing of this space. Then, with the
exhalation, comes a smile signifying that insight has occurred.

Knowing comes not by grasping but by invitation. A genuine invita-
tion makes time but most of all space for the guest. By meditative
practices, the space for knowing can be opened up and the opening can
be made to last longer. But whatever the duration of one's dwelling in
this space, the making of this space is all that is needed as an invitation
to knowing. This space when cleared of the debris of thought allows the
luminous diamond of knowing to shine in perfect transparency, even if
only for a moment

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ing.

Understanding Laing's

Understanding of the Family

Before The Family Was Understood

Donadrian L. Rice

We speak of families as though we all know what they are. We
identify, as families, networks of people who live together over
periods of time, who have ties of marriages and kinships to one
another. The more one studies family dynamics, the more unclear
one becomes as to the ways family dynamics compare and contrast
with the dynamics of other groups not called families let alone the
ways families themselves differ. (Laing, 1971)

The title of this paper may be mis-leading to some in that it may
seem to imply that prior to the writings of R. D. Laing there was no
attempt made to understand the family. On the contrary, when
psychiatrists started to observe and to treat families, it became apparent
that the theories developed in the first half of the century were inade-
quate to understand the family. Fox (1976) traces the development of
family therapy to six major factors: (1) increasing sophistication in
conceptualizing individual psychotherapy; (2) the child guidance move-
ment of the 1930's and 1940's; (3) the development of group therapy;
(4) the rise of marriage counseling; (5) intensive research into tough

Donadrian L. Rice 63

clinical problems, such as schizophrenia; and (6) serendipitous influen-
ces. Hence, in the nearly four decades of its existence, family therapy
has become an all encompassing term for a number of orientations and
practices.

To be sure, however, this present paper is not about family therapy,
but rather an exposition of the unique contribution Laing has made to
the field. It is the opinion of the author that Laing's contribution in this
area even outweighs the more publicized attention to his work on
schizophrenia. In fact, it is because of his work with schizophrenia that
Laing became aware of the importance of the family context. It is quite
clear that other therapists were cognizant of the urgency to comprehend
the family (as presented below), and that many diverse concepts and
styles have been ensued. However, Laing's ability to understand and to
penetrate deep into the very experience of the family has provided rich
clinical data not found in the major models of family therapy today.
Before exploring Laing's contributions, a brief presentation of some of
the major contributions to the development of family therapy is
presented to initiate the reader to the issues involved.

The Development of Family Therapy

As stated earlier, family therapy has emerged from a number of
diverse orientations and practices. One of the major obstacles confront-
ing therapists in the early development of family therapy was the
overwhelming emphasis on traditional Freudian concepts. Many
psychiatrists emerging from a psychodynamic background found it dif-
ficult, if not impossible, to maintain the perspective that pathology is
contained within the individual when treating families. One of the major
contributors of the family approach when it was developed in the 1950's
was the discovery that symptoms could be viewed as appropriate and
adaptive behavior. Rather than assume a symptom was irrational and
based on misperceptions carried over from the past, it was argued that
a symptom was a way of adapting to the current social situation.

Among the therapists who began shifting their emphasis to the
family and away from traditional psychoanalysis are Theodore Lidz,
Nathan Ackerman, and Murray Bowen. Lidz (1963), like Laing, began
investigating the relation of the family to schizophrenia and generalizing
such investigations to a theory of the role of the family in society at large.
However, unlike Laing, Lidz draws a curious conclusion that the even-
tual psychological health of the individual family member consists in
adapting to the family. Ackerman (1958) came to regard the disturbed

64 Laing's Understanding of the Family

person as symptomatic of a disturbed family. As a result of his experien-
ces with children in therapy, he found that as the children improved,
their parents began developing neurotic symptoms or marital dysfunc-
tion. Ackerman utilizes office interviews with the entire family and also
visits the family in their home. Thus, he sees the diagnostic and
therapeutic process as embedded in the dynamics of the family group.

Bowen's (1960) observation of schizophrenic patients who lived
with their parents in a hospital ward for sustained periods led to the
conclusion that the entire family unit was pathogenic and not just the
patient. From these observations, he evolved the idea of "undifferen-
tiated ego mass" family and the related concept of personal individua-
tion as essential to mental health. In addition, Bowen is credited with
what is called the systems mode. He regards the family as a system in the
sense that a change in one part of that system will, in due course,
produce a change in another part.

In an attempt to understand schizophrenia, a Palo Alto group
approached the problem from a communication point of view. This
group contained no less than four prominent names in the history of
family therapy: Don Jackson, Jay Haley, Virginia Satir, and Gregory
Bateson. During the 1950's, Bateson, an anthropologist, was involved
in a project on communication. Bateson and his colleagues began to feel
that therapy for schizophrenics must encompass the family group. While
much of this research was conducted under Bateson 's name, members
of this group developed their individual approaches to the family.

Haley (1976) and Jackson (1961) developed short term, strategic
changes based on precise understanding of the family as a system. An
additional influence for Haley was the hypnotic technique of Milton
Erickson, which became the model for a certain type of intervention by
indirect suggestion. Satir's (1972) approach emphasized self realization
and clarity of communication. She regarded the family therapist as a
resource person who observes the family process in action and then a
model of communication for the family through clear, crisp communica-
tion. Another element important to Satir's method is the communica-
tion of feeling, which was consistent with the Human Potential move-
ment of the 1960's.

An important idea evolving out of the research of Bateson and his
colleagues is the concept of the double bind (Bateson, Jackson, Haley,
& Weakland, 1956). An example of this is a child receiving contradictory
messages from another family member. For instance, a father might
repeatedly tell his child to "Always stand up for your rights regardless
of the situation!" This is what Bateson refers to as the primary injunc-

Donadrian L. Rice 65

tion. However, on other occasions, the child is also told by the father,
"Always do what I say!" or "I am your father, never question my
authority!" This secondary injunction conflicts with the first but at a
more abstract level. Hence, the child is in a bind. The contradiction
inherent in the two messages ensures that no matter what the child does
in relation to the father, it will be the wrong thing. Bateson and his
colleagues felt that the contradiction, the father's failure to admit that
there is a contradiction, and the lack of support from other family
members can lead to the development of schizophrenia.

While this theory provided fertile ground for further research and
methods for detecting pathological communication patterns in families,
Bateson (1972) later revised the concept to include an experiential
dimension. As he states:

our original paper on the double bind contains numerous errors
due simply to our having not yet articulately examined the reifica-
tion problem. We talk in that paper as though a double bind were
a something and as though such somethings could be counted...
double bind theory is concerned with the experiential component
in the genesis of tangles in the roles or premises of habit (pp. 272,
276).

Further consideration of the double bind is presented later in
connection with Laing's ideas.

Lastly, it is important to mention the recent work of Maria Selvini-
Palazzoli and her Milan-based associates. The ideas of this group, which
has come to be known as Milan Systematic Family Therapy, extended
the ideas of the Palo Alto group through the use of paradoxical inter-
ventions and other team approaches to families with schizophrenia and
anorexia nervosa (Selvini-Palazzoli, 1978). On the basis of this account
of some of the major positions in family therapy, attention can now turn
to Laing.

It is virtually impossible to cite one or two sources as representative
of Laing's position on the family. While he did publish a work entitled
The Politics of the Family (Laing, 1971), it is important to examine some
of Laing's earlier works in order to appreciate fully the progression of
his thinking on the subject. Incidentally, The Politics of the Family is
actually the last major clinical work published by Laing. Subsequent
works fall outside of the study of theoretical and methodological con-
cepts relating to individuals of families. Thus, to begin this under-
standing of Laing, an examination is made of his first major work.

66 Laing's Understanding of the Family

The Divided Self

The publication of The Divided Self (Laing, 1969) represents a
significant breakthrough in the attempt to understand schizophrenia. It
challenged the psychiatric community to dissolve barriers between
themselves and patients and to transcend the limitations inherent in the
natural scientific, positivist approach to medical psychiatry. In the first
chapter, "The Existential-Phenomenological Foundation for a Science
of Persons," Laing asked the question "how can I go straight to the
patient if the psychiatric words at my disposal keep the patient at a
distance from me?" (pp. 16-17). By asking this question, Laing recog-
nizes the problem of psychiatric terminology which splits people up
without consideration of what the words actually "disclose or conceal."
Laing further points out that the technical terminology of psychiatry,
psychoanalysis, and other systems tend to isolate human beings from
one another and the world. In other words, the vocabulary implies that
human beings are not essentially in relationship to the other and in a
world. Words such as "mind," "body," "physical," "mental," "organism,"
etc. are all abstractions. As Laing says "instead of the original bond of
I and You, we take a single man in isolation and conceptualize his
various aspects into 'the ego,' 'the super ego,' and 'the id'" (p. 17).

From the preceding statements, it can be noted that Laing estab-
lishes the approach he wishes to take. He describes his method as
existential phenomenology. In characterizing existential phenomenol-
ogy, one is met with the difficult task of synthesizing diverse ideas held
by the many different existential phenomenologists. Hence, the ques-
tion arises, what does Laing mean by existential phenomenology? Be-
cause these terms are often rather loosely used labels, a digression on
their meaning is relevant at this point, although this is not an attempt
to give a full of exhaustive account of these philosophies.

Existentialism

It would be incorrect to begin by defining existentialism as simply
a philosophy, because its import has exceeded the boundaries of
philosophical circles (Barrett, 1962). To be sure, existentialism is a vast
and amorphous position having ill-defined boundaries and doctrines,
but at the same time maintaining a central coherence (Karl & Hamalian,
1974). Witness, for example, the writings of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,
Jaspers, Marcel, Heidegger, Camus, Tillich, Sartre, and Binswanger.
The impact of the existential movement has found its way into the areas
of literature, art, music, and psychotherapy, as well as philosophy. Even

Donadrian L Rice 67

those who may be unfamiliar with the specifics of existentialism are quite
familiar with some of its major themes such as existence, possibility,
despair, nothingness, alienation, being, the absurd, and the death of
God.

Beginning as a revolt against the atomistic or reductionistic view
that science and philosophy held toward the human being, existentialism
takes human existence as its subject matter. It is concerned with human
existence in its involvement in a situation within a world (Kockelmans,
1967). Hence, existentialism asserts the primacy of existence over es-
sences, which is to say, the essential qualities of a human being are
determined by his or her existence of modes of being: being-in-the-
world, being-for-others, being-for-self, etc. What is implied here is
people make their own lives: the qualities of persons, their essence, are
the outcome of their own personal choices of their general being-in-
the-world.

This raises two major concerns that are characteristic of existen-
tialism. The first is the question of being. How do the various modes of
being go together? And secondly, there is the issue of individual
freedom, the right of the individual to choose and act out his or her own
destiny. Even if freedom is not explicitly an issue, one may expect an
existential analysis to perceive empathy and tolerance towards the
individual's position. That is, an existentialist respects the individual's
views rather than evaluates them in terms of criteria external to that
individual's position.

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is a method developed originally by Husserl pur-
porting to acquire pre-scientific knowledge in a rigorous way. Roughly
speaking, its essential features are: (a) "pure" (presuppositionless
description of conscious phenomena as we experience them, not as we
believe they must be in light of common sense or scientific knowledge;
(b) analysis of these phenomena in terms of "intentionality," i.e. direc-
tedness towards objects, which is said to be a feature of all mental
phenomena (Husserl, 1913/1962). Thus, a belief is a belief about some-
thing, a desire is a desire for something, a sensation is a sensation of
something. To give, then a phenomenological analysis of an object or
person as it is experienced by one or more human beings.

We are now in a position to look at the relationship of existentialism
to phenomenology. The most striking feature of existentialism that
distinguishes it from phenomenology is its subject matter, which is
human existence as opposed to consciousness as found in phenomeno-

68 Laing's Understanding of the Family

logy. An equally important factor, also, is that existentialism, unlike
phenomenology, does not aspire to be scientific. This is not to say that
existentialism is necessarily anti-scientific or even anti-systematic. Sys-
tematic structures and absolute certainty are simply none of its primary
objectives. Hence, existentialism is not restricted to any particular
method; its ultimate objective is not "theoretical justification, but the
awakening of a special way of life, usually called 'authentic existence'"
(Spiegelberg, 1967).

Despite these differences, existentialism and phenomenology are
quite compatible. To be sure, phenomenology has enriched itself and
developed into a philosophy of the person by borrowing many topics
from existentialism (Luijpen, 1974). What is known today as "existential
phenomenology" is basically a synthesis of Kierkegaard's existentialism
and Husserl's phenomenology as expressed in the writings of Heidegger
in his quest for the meaning of Being. Heidegger tried to enlist an
enlarged hermeneutic phenomenology, interpreting the meaning of the
phenomena, particularly that of human Dasein, for the task of uncover-
ing the meanings of human existence (Heidegger, 1927/1962). Thus,
existential phenomenology maintains that existence can be approached
phenomenologically and studied as one phenomenon among others in
its essential structures.

Ontological Insecurity

In the light of this all too brief account of these philosophical
traditions, what can now be said about Laing's employment of them?
Through the application of existential phenomenology philosophy,
Laing (1969a) tried to demonstrate that schizophrenia is best under-
stood both as the experience of primary ontological insecurity (a term
derived from Tillich), and as the efforts of the subject to deal with and
come to terms with this experience. As Laing (1969a) states:

Existential phenomenology attempts to characterize the nature of
a person's experience of his world and himself. It is not so much an
attempt to describe particular objects of his experience as to set all
particular experiences within the context of his whole being-in-the-
world. The mad things said and done by the schizophrenic will
remain essentially a closed book if one does not understand their
existential context, (p. 15)

Primary ontological insecurity is viewed by Laing as a fear of one's
soul. He attempts to show that our ontological orientation engages us
in questionable assumptions about experience itself and particularly our

Donadrian L Rice 69

experience of others. The most basic existential problem, as Laing sees
it, is the preservation or loss of one's sense of self. Furthermore, he feels
that one's sense of self, its presentation and its possible loss, is inex-
tricably bound up in self other relationships. Thus, for Laing (1969a),
the necessary task of existential phenomenology is to:

articulate what the other's "world' is and his way of being in it... It
is of considerable practical importance that we should be able to
see that the concept and/or experience that a man may have of his
being may be very different from one's own concept or experience
of his being. In these cases, one has to be able to orient oneself as
a person in the other's scheme of things rather than only to see the
other as an object in one's own world, i.e., within the total system
of one's own reference, (pp. 24-25)

Laing described three forms of anxiety to which an ontologically
insecure person is prone. The first is termed "engulf ment." This is the
fear of losing one's identity by interacting with others. The second form
of anxiety is termed "implosion." This refers to a state whereby the
individual experiences him or herself as hollow of vacuous. The third
form is termed "petrification," which refers to a dread of being immo-
bilized as an object for another. Initially, therefore, this anxiety is one
of being regarded as an object, an "it," of not being considered really
there, in a personal sense. Laing proceeds to give several clinical
examples illustrating these anxieties and their relation to ontological
insecurity which comprises part one of The Divided Self. The remaining
sections deal with how the schizoid individual copes with ontological
insecurity and the transition from schizoid to schizophrenic states. The
book ends with an extended case study of a chronically schizophrenic
woman.

The reader may be wondering at this point what this perspective
has to do with family therapy. While there would not be much argument
about the foregoing ideas of Laing's today, it was quite radical to make
such statements in the late 1950's in a psychiatric atmosphere of tran-
quilizers, electric shock, and brain surgery. Any one, or all of these
methods of treatment were administered when one found oneself not
in step with one's family, community, or society at large. Laing's primary
purpose here is to "make madness, and the process of going mad,
comprehensible" (p. 9). Obviously, Laing understands that in order to
understand the "other" one must situate the other in his or her existen-
tial milieu, not least the family. Consideration is now given to another

70 Laing's Understanding of the Family

work by Laing, one whose impact on family therapy has yet to be
realized.

Self and Others

In this publication, Laing (1969b) states his purpose as an attempt
"to depict persons within a social system or 'nexus' of person, in order
to try to understand some of the ways in which each affects each person's
experience of himself and of how interaction takes form (p. xi). To
comprehend the act interexperiencing, Laing proceeds to show how
phantasy, which is individual, enters into interpersonal relations and
becomes an integral part of the structure of the group. Phenomenologi-
cally speaking, phantasy is neither private, unsharable, nor unreal. What
goes on in families is a shared phantasy system about what each member
thinks the family is. As Laing says:

The close-knit groups that occur in some families and other group-
ings are bound together by the need to find pseudo-real experience
that can be found only through the modality of phantasy. This
means that the family is not experienced as the modality of phantasy
but as 'reality.' However, 'reality' in this sense is not a modality, but
a quality attachable to any modality, (p. 24)

For the individual family member, shared phantasies become an
important part of the experience of being in the family. However, to a
great extent, these shared phantasies are shared misperceptions of the
family itself. It is as if within each member of the family there is an image
of the family, and these images correspond to each other, but not
necessarily to the real family. The family member in such a system loses
his or her individuality but may not experience it as such. Laing speaks
of an "alienation effect," and a "false position," but stresses that the
falsity of it is only apparent retrospectively, that is only after an in-
dividual has managed to extricate himself from the system. Since the
system provides a strong sense of reality, removing oneself requires a
derealization of the pseudo-reality and a realization of a new reality.
However by doing so, the individual runs the risk of being labeled mad.

A further important concept of Laing introduces is called an "un-
tenable position." This occurs when a person is placed in two or more
false positions which are mutually incompatible. Here Laing draws on
the work of Bateson and his colleagues (1956) noting that their theory
of the double bind situation is highly relevant to his own work. However,
Laing recognizes that Bateson's theory is a causal one and posits a
theory of behavior without theoretical consideration accorded to ex-

Donadrian L Rice 71

perience, As mentioned earlier, Bateson acknowledges this problem in
a later paper. Instead of the term "double bind," Laing uses the term
"untenable position," which in many ways is phenomenologically more
sound than the double bind as Bateson employs it. What Laing recog-
nizes in the untenable position is: (1) an existential quality, i.e. one
places oneself in an untenable position; (2) a social-behavioral quality,
i.e. one is placed in an untenable position by others, and; (3) what might
be termed a transpersonal quality, i.e. there is no apparent binder.

A situation of this type may result from an instinctual dynamic. For
instance, a child may place the parents in an untenable position by crying
when it is hungry and continuing to cry when fed. Feeling at a loss as to
what to do, the parents become tense and anxious, perhaps withdrawing
affection on the one hand, and overly indulging and being protective on
the other (Laing, 1969b). Hence, the contradiction is not within the
family, but between the family and the child's biological need to eat.
Both parents and child are in a bind, but yet, there is no binder.

In his continuing investigation of phantasy experience, Laing looks
at the relation of phantasy to other modes of experiencing and forms of
behavior. He particularly investigates hysteria which he calls "elusion."
As Laing (1969b) states:

Elusion is a way of getting around conflict without direct confron-
tation, or its resolution. It eludes conflict by playing off one modality
of experience against another, (p. 32)

Thus, a person in a relationship who does not want to be in the
relationship pretends not to be in the relationship. When this person
comes to feel that he or she is no longer in a relationship, it becomes
necessary to pretend that he or she actually is. Instead of being what he
or she is, one pretends to be.

Having thus characterized interpersonal conflicts as conflicts exist-
ing between different identities within the same person, Laing next
examines how one achieves a social identity. Recognizing the limitations
of inter-experiencing at the level of phantasy, Laing introduces the
concept of "complementarity." Laing (1969b) explains:

By complementarity I denote that function of personal relations
whereby the other fulfills or completes self. One person may com-
plement another in many different senses. This function's biologi-
cally determined at one level, and a matter of highly individualized
choice at the other extreme. Complementarity is more or less
formalized, culturally conditional, (pp. 66-67)

72 Laing's Understanding of the Family

Thus, one must not only have an identity for oneself, but also, an
identity for others. However, a viable identity of self is impossible unless
the definition of self by others is in some ways compatible. To deal with
this problem, Laing introduces three more concepts: confirmation,
disconfirmation, and collusion. These concepts can be seen as an ac-
knowledgment that we need our own conception of the objective world
to coincide with, or at least not to be too discrepant from the world as
seen by others.

With respect to confirmation, Laing (1969b) states that:

Any human interaction implies some measure of confirmation, at
any rate of the physical bodies of the participants, even when one
person is shooting another, (p. 82)

Any acknowledgment from another confirms one's presence in the
world, even if that acknowledgment brings harm to one's self. From the
above quote it is obvious that confirmation does not mean or imply
agreement. And for disconfirmation, it may take the form of tangential
responses, or having an opinion invalidated rather than contradicted:
that is, treated as worthless, not merely false.

Collusion on the other hand involves two or more people playing
a "game" with each other to the point that they mutually deceive
themselves. This is a cooperative effort in which the individuals involved
participate willingly, but without any awareness of doing so. In a sense,
collusion could be a resolution to the problem of disconfirmation. The
particular function of collusion seems to be the mutual confirmation of
the individuals' positions by each other.

A significant contribution to understanding and making intelligible
communication in couples and families is to be found in the appendix
of Self and Others. Entitled "A Shorthand for Dyadic Perspective,"
Laing attempts to transcend the behavioral approach to communication
which is isolated from experience, and replace it with a more
phenomenological concept, "perspective." Unlike, Bateson's theory,
the concept of perspective situates the perception of incoming com-
munication and the knowledge of outgoing communication within the
experience of the individual. An expansion of this idea is found in a work
entitled "Individual Perception" (Laing, et. al., 1966). The "interper-
sonal perception method" (IPM) set forth in this book uses such tools
as a technical symbolic notation, and the matching and statistical analysis
of questionnaires, in order to discover information unavailable to the
experience of any individual. That is to say, it provides information
about discrepancies in interpersonal perception.

Donadrian L Rice 73

Thus, in investigating the interpersonal range between the self and
others, and particularly in the dyadic relation between the two selves,
Laing attempts to understand one's "Meta-perspective," i.e. com-
prehending one's view of the other's view of oneself. Laing's employ-
ment of the concept is seen quite clearly in his research into
schizophrenic families (Laing & Esterson, 1964) and normal and dis-
turbed marriages (Laing, Phillipson, & Lee, 1966).

The Politics of the Family

This brings us to a discussion of an important work by Laing that
actually represents his last major publication of a psychiatric nature. In
Politics of the Family Laing (1971) begins by discussing the relation
between "the family and the 'family.'" Where "family" is used to mean
the internalized pattern of family relation in the individual. He says:

It is to the relation between the observable structures of the family
and the structures that endure as part of the 'family* as a set of
relations and operations between them that this chapter is ad-
dressed, (pp. 3-4)

To better understand what Laing is referring to here, it is necessary
to examine an article written by Laing, published as a chapter in a book
by Lomas (1967) entitled, "The Predicament of the Family." This article
was revised as the first chapter of The Politics of the Family. In that
article, Laing begins by asking the obvious, but important question: what
is a family? And, what is meant by the terms "family dynamics" and the
family structure? A family, he says, is a system of interaction and
interexperience.

Understood this way, Laing challenges the therapeutic community
to acknowledge their lack of understanding concerning the relationship
of family dynamics and structure to other sorts of group dynamics and
structure. The essential issue here is the relation between the structure
of the family as observed and the experiential structures of it's members,
particularly phantasy experience. Laing continues by suggesting that it
is incorrect to view any group as a set of binary relations; that is, as a set
of relations between individuals and the rest of the group. For in doing
so, the observing third party is ignored, which must be considered when
attempting a phenomenological approach as Laing does here. As an
example, a family consisting of a father, mother, son, and daughter will
not only have the daughter's view of the father, mother, etc., i.e., all
binary combinations, but also the daughter's view of the relationship

74 Laing's Understanding of the Family

between father and mother, between mother and son, etc., the
daughter's view of the son's view of the relationship between father and
mother, and so on. Laing terms each of these perspectives a "synthesis."

Considering that communication within any dyad may be clear or
dysfunctional, it will be perceived differently according to who the
observer is. If father, mother, and son interact happily with respect to
the son, that is, when synthesized by son as parents, but fail to do so with
respect to each other, that is, when synthesized by each other as husband
and wife, coherency within the group is at stake. To achieve coherency,
each member must perform acts of synthesis whereby members of the
group are "we" and non-members are "them." Each member must
internalize not only his own syntheses but everyone else's, also.
Hence,m the family observed is quite different from the internalized
"family." As Laing (1971, p. 5) states, "The 'family' to each of its
members is no objective set of relations. It exists in each of the elements
in it, and nowhere else."

In analyzing the phenomenon, Laing (1971) uses the notion of
mapping. He says that "internalization means to map 'outer' onto
'inner'" (p. 7). The internalized family is the process of mapping the
"family" onto the family. There are a number of mapping operations
which can be performed here: first, one's family of origin is internalized
as a child, which is of course basic to psychoanalytic theory, but Laing
suggests that the "family" is not an introjected object, but an introjected
set of relations (p. 6). As Laing (1967) puts it:

In studying the families of very disturbed people, we have repeated-
ly been surprised by the extend to which quite delusional structures
are recognizably related to family relations. The reprojection of the
'family' is thus not simply a matter of projecting an 'internal' object
onto an external person. It is the re-experiencing of the whole
system of relations (p. 116).

The "family," then, is mapped back (projected) onto the family, but
also onto later relationships. In a family with a shared phantasy of its
own structure, it is to be expected that, in the first place, the "families"
of the parents, derived from their experiences of their own families of
origin, will form the core of the new 'family' which the children will be
under pressure to internalize.

The pressure on another person to adapt one's own phantasy is
what Laing (1971) calls "induction." Induction is the operation of
inducing another to embody one's projection of them. Induction, there-
fore, is something one does to another's experience. As Laing describes:

Donadrian L Rice 75

Suppose I projected my mother onto my wife... I may or may not
induce her to embody my mother. The operation of inducing her to
embody my projection is what I am calling induction. Projection is
done by one person as his own experience of the other. Induction
is done by one person to the other's experience, (p. 119)

Children particularly will be subject to induction by the parents of
their own phantasy structures.

Once a family has a shared phantasy, transpersonal defenses
develop. The phantasy has to be defended against conflicting maps of
the family, particularly more accurate ones. Anyone who ceases to share
the phantasy, or the child who has never properly internalized it (per-
haps has internalized the "real" family instead) is perceived as a threat.
Confirmation of the shared phantasy is reinforced, disconfirmation of
it is punished, the emotional dependence of the child on the parents
places in their hands a powerful weapon with which to punish any doubts
about their phantasy family.

Incidentally, denial is an example of a transpersonal defense (ac-
tually, Laing prefers the term "operation"). Specifically, it is demanded
by others and forms a part of what Laing (1971) calls a "transpersonal
system of collusion" (p. 99). Such an operation is at the basis of the
Happy Families game, whereby everyone is unhappy, but all deny it to
themselves, and deny their denial to themselves and each other. Each
colludes in the mutual denial. Moreover, rules develop which are meant
to convey a process whereby certain basic distinctions such as good and
evil are projected into the world. These rules govern the entire social
field. Laing says:

It is bad to think bad about what you are supposed to think good
about. It is bad to think good about what you are supposed to think
bad about. It is good to think bad about what you're supposed to
think bad about, (p. 105)

But beyond those rules are meta-rules, to the effect that such
badness or goodness is not seen as a projection; the initial rule does not
exist. There are, in fact, rules against seeing the rules. Hence, the
function of phantasy is the mapping of experience onto experience.

Dialectical Intelligibility

A discussion of Laing's contribution would not be complete without
taking at least a cursory look at his employment of concepts found in
Jean Paul Sartre's (1960/1976) Critique de la Raison Dialectique. Laing

76 Laing's Understanding of the Family

and his colleague, David Cooper (1964) published a work that in some
sense may seem tangential to the writings in psychiatry. The book
entitled Reason and Violence purports to be an account of "A Decade
of Sartre's Philosophy," the subtitle of the book. While a complete
rendering of the ideas found in this work cannot be made here, attention
is given to those concepts that specifically relate to assessment (not
derived from measurement) of the family situation.

In a paper entitled Mystification, Confusion, and Conflict, Laing
(1965) states his intention is "to give an account of two theoretical
polarities developed by Sartre in the 'Critique,' namely praxis and
process, and series and nexus, using the family as a point of concrete
reference" (p. 7). Praxis, self-action in a project, is the struggle against
process, passive reception of action. A dialectical investigation attempts
to establish the complex play of praxis and process. Various occurrences
and events may be intentional acts by individuals, or they may simply be
the outcome of, or parts of, a continuous series of operations that have
no agent as their author.

When one can trace what is going on in a group (a family) to the
authorship of its members, the term praxis is used. However, behavior
may have become too far alienated from anyone's responsibility to be
directly comprehensible in terms of the deeds of any identifiable agent.
But it is intelligible if one can retrace the steps from "what is going on"
which is process to "who is doing what" (praxis) (Laing, 1965, pp. 7-8).
Hence, praxis is human intention whereas process is the result of
physical forces. As an example, if a person is severely ill and heavily
medicated and begins to talk seemingly nonsensical, this could be the
outcome of process. On the other hand, if that same person, a few weeks
later, announced his or her candidacy for public office; that would be
the result of praxis. What is essential here is that since praxis is the result
of human intention, it is intelligible, it can be comprehensible in human
terms. Process, on the other hand, can only be understood in terms of
cause and effect, quantification, etc.

Now the two types of groups in which praxis and process are
realized are "series" and "nexus." In a series, no one individual is
essential. Members of this group may be unified by serial ideas which
are never held by anyone on his or her own. Each person is thinking of
what he or she thinks the other thinks. A nexus is a group "where
unification is achieved through reciprocal interiorization by each other,
in which neither a common object, nor organization, nor institutional
structures, etc., has a primary function as a kind of group cement"

Donadrian L Rice 77

(Laing, 1965, p. 11). The nexus only exists in so far as it is present in
each person, including the own person.

According to Laing, families are often of the structure of a nexus.
To remain united, each family member must interiorize the "family." As
Laing (1965) states:

The condition of permanence of such a nexus, whose sole existence
is each person's interiorization of it, is the successful re-invention
of whatever gives such interiorization its raison d'etre. If there is no
external danger, then danger and terror have to be invented and
maintained. Each person has to act on the others to maintain the
nexus in them. (p. 12)

Now, since human reality is contradictorily and continuously un-
dergoing a process of change, it is imperative for the therapist to
conceptualize and comprehend behavior and experience through the
heuristic benefits of a dialectical perspective, change and growth are
emphasized through the progressive reconciliation of contradictions
existing in one's experience and behavior and in one's relation to the
family in question. This change and growth is integral to the dialectical
method and is experienced as a movement in both the therapist and the
individual family member.

The dialectical method is a movement of totalizing, detotalizing,
and retotalizing essentially different elements of experience in wider
synthesis. This progressive-regressive movement occurs in three mo-
ments. In the first moment, the therapist's initial totalization is disrupted
when it becomes apparent that certain elements in the situation under
study are not congruent with existing findings or totalizations of the
observed and with his or her relation to it. Incidentally, for the purposes
here, a totalization is defined as the sum total of one's experience about
something in the present moment. The term, as used by Sartre, is
defined more extensively; the reader is referred to these sources for
further explanation (see Sartre, 1963; 1976/1960; Laing, et.al. 1964;
Esterson, 1972).

Consequently, the second moment is a negation of the totalization
by the therapist. In the third moment, the therapist retotalizes the
situation by dissolving into and preserving the former findings in a wider
synthesis. The method of totalizing is constituted by a movement that is
regressive and progressive in structure., The three moments constitute
the regressive-progressive movement. Sartre's (1963) schema for this
movement is outlined in the following way: 1) phenomenological
description, or observation by experience, though based on some

78 Laing's Understanding of the Family

general theory; 2) analytical-regressive, and; 3) synthetic progression.
In the first moment, the investigator attends phenomenologically to
contradictory events occurring in the system under study and to his or
her own experience of the system as a participating member. From here
the therapist proceeds by way of a regressive analysis to analyze histori-
cally previous totalization about the system in order to define and date
its earlier stages and his or her relation to it

A progressive-synthetic movement comprises the third moment,
wherein the historical findings, by means of a hypothesis, are
reconstituted and related synthetically to the experientially observed
events in an expanded totalization. In other words, to clarify an event
in a present situation, the synthetic-progressive movement, which is
historical and genetic, moves from past to present to rediscover the
present (Laing and Cooper, 1964). Upon forming a totalization about
the family, the therapist must proceed by way of a regressive movement
to an analysis of all socio-environmental conditioning factors including
the intra-familial, extra-familial, economic, and socio-historical factors
that have bearing on the present situation.

However, this movement does not signal end to the investigation.
The therapist must then move from the past to the present to rediscover
the present in a new synthesis. By a synthetic-progressive movement,
the therapist can grasp a family's own totalization of the conditioning
factors on the basis of the conditioning factors totalization of the family.
That is to say, it is necessary to comprehend what effect the historical
conditioning factors have had on the family and how the family responds
to these socio-historical factors.

Now dialectical reasoning implies that one is attempting to make
sense of a situation in order to act on the sense made. This provides
intelligibility. Intelligibility involves the totalization of the individuals
comprehension of what is being studied with his or her own awareness
of him or her doing it. Hence, to render a family's actions intelligible,
the therapist must not only come to be aware of their totalizations of
each other, and of the family itself, but also be aware of his or her own
totalization of their totalization of the way he or she constitutes himself
or herself as a part of the family being studied. Before leaving this
discussion, Laing (1965) introduces another term that is relevant to
understanding the family: "mystification." Laing argues that mystifica-
tion is the misrepresentation of praxis as process, and this misrepresen-
tation is itself a form of praxis. The immediate function of mystification
is to mask real conflicts. As an example, Laing uses a situation wherein
a teenage girl and her mother are in conflict. Her mother perceives any

Donadrian L Rice 79

signs of maturation on the part of the daughter as symptoms of either
badness of madness (e.g. going out with boys or the questioning of
accepted religious beliefs). Her axes, then, were simply good/bad, and
sane/mad, these being identified with her daughter's behavior,
chronologically, then/now. "Good," for the mother, was the girl's be-
havior as an obedient child. She lacked any historical perspective, both
of her daughter, her relation to her daughter, and of the family as a
whole. Consequently, she was not able to use the axis of, say, imma-
ture/mature, which would have corresponded, objectively, to the girl's
developing biological maturity.

The therapist, upon discovering such a situation, must demystify
the obscurity and discover the real issues, and contrast these with the
false issues. Mystification serves to maintain rigid stereotypic roles. A
mystified relationship rules out the genuine reciprocal conformation of
identity, and substitutes a pseudo-mutuality in which false fronts are
induced, and an overall system of pseudo-identities arises based on
phantasy. According to Laing (1965) such systems are found to be
almost universal in the families of schizophrenics. However, the same
situation can be found in normal families because while mystification
frequently seeks to avoid conflict, it does not necessarily avoid all
conflict. In fact, it may institute conflict over non-existent issues, thereby
clouding the real issues.

Laing (1965) gives an example of a child playing noisily, and is
getting on the mother's nerves. She wants him to go to bed. Now, she
may say, "I'm tired, go to bed," or, "Go bed because I say so." These are
straight injunctions which the child may obey or disobey. On the other
hand, the mother may employ mystification and say, "I'm sure you feel
tired, darling, and want to go to bed, don't you?" The mystification here
resides in several aspects: first, what is apparently a factual description
of the child's condition is really a command; second, the child's feelings
are being defined for him regardless of how he actually feels; and third,
what he is supposed to feel is what the mother actually feels. Hence,
before a therapist can take enlightened action, demystification must
occur.

What then can be said of Laing's contribution to understanding the
family? First of all, Laing and his colleagues have realized more than
any other theoretician and practitioner that the essential features of
human experience can be revealed in an adequate manner, and the
dimensions of human meanings, purposes, and history are embodied in
the person's experience. Secondly, he has extended the knowledge of
family interaction based on psychoanalytic theory to a methodology that

80 Laing's Understanding of the Family

will do justice to the uniqueness, richness and complexity of the family.
Thirdly, Laing's understanding of the family transcends mere technique.
On the contrary, his understanding is the empathic grasping of the
nature of the family's being-in-the-world. Fourthly, by radically reflect-
ing on the important role of phantasy (experience) in families, not only
is there a change in the perception of that experience for the therapist,
but also, it demands a change in the therapist as an experiencer. What
is changed is the attitude of the therapist toward the family in question.
By adopting a dialectical-phenomenological perspective, the family
therapist becomes aware of various systems and approaches to therapy
as being only a phase in the ongoing dialectical movement. Through
dialectical reasoning the family therapist becomes able to make sense
of and understand the family in increasingly wider ranges of intel-
ligibility. The basic aim of Laing throughout his clinical writings is the
acquisition of that essential understanding.

References

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Barrett, W. (1962). Irrational man. Garden City, NY: Anchor.

Bateson, G., Jackson, D. P., Haley, J., & Weakland, J. H. (1956). Toward a

theory of schizophrenia. Behavioral Science, 1, (4).
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine.
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Bedtime Stories:
Engendering Sex Through Narrative

Kareen Ror Malone

Reputable colloquial use reveals that American culture closely
associates having sex and having (a) sex (even if it is unclear what sex
we have at those precipitous moments). Consequently, I begin with the
precept that it is both useful and necessary to examine the significance
of gender in terms of its expressions within sexuality. Simply put, gender
and sexuality are interdependent and overlapping domains of human
meaning. Although in many respects this assertion seems self-evident,
psychologists and sexologists, whom we might consider most intimate
with the real of sex, have been slow to investigate the implications of a
conjunction between sex and gender. Both sexology and psychology
remain within frameworks that have historically privileged either (de-
sexed) individual experience or the scientific method (Irvine, 1990).

With respect to the former, psychologists in the humanistic
paradigm consider sexual identity as a distinctive addition to individual
identity. The issue then becomes to liberate presumably natural sexual
feelings from the fetters of gender into the clear air of individual
self-expression. But when humanistic psychology universalizes the idea
of the individual, it has a difficult time recognizing the historical context
which has given rise to the individuality so conceived. Thus, for example,
feminist criticisms of scientific sexology which invoke humanistic values

Kareen Ror Malone 83

as spoken through the "voices" of women (Tiefer, 1990) may overlook
the social contexts that have given women's voices a very particular
script to follow. This script and the values it promotes are as enmeshed
with femininity as the scientific discourse is enmeshed with masculinity.
Further, universalizing individuality blinds one to other autonomous
systems of the psychological register. Such autonomous systems, gender
being but one example, may actually play an independent role in the
constitution of individuality. Because humanism ties individuality with
a notion of freedom which can not have its defining subjectivity essen-
tially compromised, gender and other determinative systems are auto-
matically excluded. (Does "one" come before two as with God or "two"
before one as with humans?) By contrast, gender studies in other
disciplines have discovered that suspending an allegiance to in-
dividuality has bred a wealth of insights and research. A psychology too
deeply committed to the study of individual experience or overly secure
in its presuppositions about individuality has in essence cut itself off
from these emerging paths of inquiry (Squire, 1989).

When it comes the question of gender and sex, the limitations of
scientific methodology are even more glaring. Not only does scientific
psychology exclude certain possible avenues of study, but it obfuscates
many of the fundamental concepts germane to the sexual realm.
Psychology's investment in the scientific method implicitly endorses a
tradition of philosophical thinking that bifurcates reality in terms of fact
vs. fiction, reality vs. illusion, subject vs. object. The privileged side of
these antinomies is the former term. One should observe that the more
valued side of the opposition enjoys a historically forged association
with masculinity while the less meritorious is joined with signifiers of
woman. These interrelations and binaries are sewn into the semantic
fabric and even the experiential identity of man and woman (where is
the "I" without the not "I") and cannot be easily dislodged by an
unreflective appeal to "objectivity." This so called "objectivity," inter-
laced with the cultural position of the sexes, only asks certain questions
of the reality that it investigates. Both the questions it poses and the
reality it claims privilege a conception of the subject (matter) that is not
neutral with respect to gender (Hare-Mustin & Marecek, 1990). Con-
sequently, we do find, and would expect to find, that even feminist
inspired empirical research would generate data and norms that lean to
the tradition of the masculine. As Jill Morawski (1990) shows in her
brilliant analysis of Bern's notion of androgyny, this inadvertent bias
does indeed insinuate itself into the feminist empirical tradition.
Morawski's point is not directed only to androgyny but to the nature of

84 Engendering Sex through Narrative

the scientific method embraced by psychology. If one conducts research,
the foundations of which depend upon certain traditionally gendered
presuppositions such as nature vs. culture, one implicitly incorporates
certain effects of gender in a haphazard and often reactionary manner.

Even with this problematic horizon, contemporary psychology has
managed to carve out a subfield of study devoted to sexuality and by
implication, to gender. In contemporary psychology, it has been typical
to allot sex to the realm of the biological and accord to gender those
aspects of sexual difference determined by cognitive schemes and
socialization. Thus sex and gender exist uncomfortably between a pre-
given objective physiology and rational or irrational socialization prac-
tices. Seldom does one find a significant effort to comprehend the
experiential and theoretical interdependence between sexuality and
gender.

Those theories within psychology that have attempted to articulate
a coherent connection between sexuality and gender usually derive from
psychoanalysis. Those theories of psychoanalysis with which most
American psychologists are familiar have pursued two courses in ex-
plicating the imbrication of sexuality and gender. In the Crst case,
psychoanalysts and post-Freudians like Erik Erikson depend upon
morphological analogies which elaborate gender from the givens of the
physical body. For example, the shape of the vagina is translated into a
feminine receptive nature, the womb into an implacable interiority.
Conversely, the outward extension of the penis and its distinctive
pointed shape have been conceived as originary in a masculine penchant
for penetration. To suggest that the possession of a particularly con-
toured sexual organ results in an insatiable desire to poke appears
absurd upon examination, but it has constituted one path by which the
psychosocial dimensions of gender have been interpreted vis a vis the
physical body. One could ask why the penis and vagina have been so
figural in such accounts. Would a focus on the testicles create a new
masculinity? In this regard, women have fared better in such discourses.
The psychosexual attitudes that have issued from analogies of anatomy
have symbolized the clitoris, the breasts, and the vagina, a veritable
cornucopia of gender trajectories.

A second course of conceptualizing sex and gender also originating
in psychoanalysis involves associating what are assumed to be
physiologically based functions such as lactation with psychological
pre-dispositions, such as mothering. Although feminists like Nancy
Chodorow (1978) have argued that mothering is a result of subtle
socialization practices which use the similarity between the bodies of

Kareen Ror Malone 85

mothers and daughters but are not dependent on that similarity, there
is still a tendency to essentialize gender behavior in terms of the
pre-given body. Lest we think that we contemporary psychologists are
beyond such essentializing, we might be reminded how often it is
asserted that sex roles are outdated because physical strength is no
longer socially relevant. What kind of theory of gender and sex does this
observation presuppose?

The most disappointing approach is the unreflective juxtaposition
of physiological facts with a summary exposition of gender specific
socialization. Although anyone can recognize the genitals being dis-
cussed, perhaps even the four stages of arousal, and can identify with
the inculcation of sex roles, no effort is made to broaden the under-
standing of a body being inducted into a two sexed culture. Further,
although there are appeals to alter antiquated sex stereotypes, little
attempt is made to discover the function or referent of those stereotypes
or account for their staying power. This failure is in part due to the
inadequacy of a physiological body to provide such a referent.

When one theorizes gender and its stereotypes in terms of other
social structures such as power hierarchies between men and women,
one possesses a more adequate framework. Still, this type of explana-
tion, popular in second wave feminism, fails to investigate how such
power structures are translated into sexually stimulating bodies except
by implicating masculine self-interest. Unfortunately, the meaning and
the motivation of self-interest, especially in sexual matters, is not self
evident. With respect to women and the parallels between sexual
subordination and other forms of social oppression, it is notable that an
adequate formulation of the "desire to be oppressed" has perplexed
Marxism for decades and the matter is even stickier in relation to sex.
With respect to the designated oppressor, man, it is problematic to
assume a desire to oppress and objectify. In sum, psychology has yet to
articulate the foundations out of which a psychology of sexuality could
emerge. Further, the incommensurability of sex and gender is no slight
oversight but rather is symptomatic of a major gap in theorizing at the
heart of a psychological understanding of sexuality. As a result, the
present state of theorizing fails to account for the presence of particular
gender practices, their pervasiveness, their variability and most impor-
tantly what makes them sexy, that is, a body that desires.

In bold contrast, other disciplines have embraced the detailed study
of sexuality and gender, not as a prurient aside, but as an fundamental
strategy for understanding the development of subjectivity, social struc-
ture, and language, topics of undeniable interest to any number of

86 Engendering Sex through Narrative

academic fields. Psychology could easily profit from the conceptions of
sexuality and gender generated in other corridors of academe.

One key to this renaissance in sexual studies is a shift to narratives
on sexuality instead of predicating the study of sexuality upon some
to-be-discovered reality. Obviously, such a shift is most easily accom-
modated in the humanities but merely its heuristic value recommends
this approach for psychological research. In contradiction to the modern
fantasy that contemporary culture is singular in its openness about sex,
recent historical researches reveal that most societies industriously
produce discourses that characterize our sexual natures. Whether that
nature is brutish and in need of restraint, as most sects of Christianity
seem to believe, or more analogous to a fresh mountain stream and to
be cherished and cultivated, or merely a matter of necessity is ultimately
beside the point. Once the emphasis is put on narrative and its effects
as narrativeper se, the question of a knowable physical reality which can
be more or less accurately portrayed is tabled. There are only bodies
being given meaning and desire through endless cycles of signification.
The narratives that criss-cross our bodies do not mirror physiology or
point to one element in the social structure. Rather narratives on sex
are symbolic knots within interlocking networks of culturally generated
meaning. The various narratives manifest these networks' mutually
reinforcing and mutually limiting sites of intersection. In an excellent
historical study of sex, Thomas Laqueur (1990) documents Western
fantasies and discourses on sex and gender. Modern physiology al-
though more in touch with the (perpetually receding) real of the body
is by no means immune from the infusion of other cultural narratives
which have been traditionally coupled with sexuality and gender.

Ancient accounts of reproductive biology, still persuasive in the
early eighteenth century, linked the intimate, experiential qualities
of sexual delight to the social and cosmic order. More generally,
biology and human sexual experience mirrored the metaphysical
reality on which it was thought that social order rested. The new
biology, with its search for fundamental differences between the
sexes... emerged at precisely the time when the foundations of the
old social order were shaken once and for all. But social and
political changes are not, in themselves, explanations for the re-in-
terpretations of bodies. The rise of evangelical religion, Enlighten-
ment political theory... Lockean ideas of marriage as a contract...
the French revolution... the factory system with its restructuring of
the sexual division of labor... none of the things caused the making

Kareen Ror Malone 87

of a new sexed body. Instead the remaking of the body is itself
intrinsic to each of these developments. (Laqueur, 1990, p. 11)

Laqueur argues that before the ascendence of modern science
gender preceded sex. Thus, for example, a woman who had given her
life to God was likely to undergo a divine sex change operation, sprout-
ing the proper accoutrements in order to utterly devote herself to the
path of the spirit (Bullough, 1982). Her mutant body reflected the
theological conviction that men were several inches closer to God. This
presupposition falls within the symbolism of gender but directly impacts
the body of sex. To merely dismiss such an alignment of sex and gender
as superstition not only impoverishes our comprehension of previous
eras, it obscures the interdependence of sex and gender in present
society.

The significance of narratives for the comprehension of sexuality
was recognized by early sexologists (although later sexology deviated
from this precedent). Kraft-Ebbing, as a case in point, collected the
biographies of the perverts he researched. He did not measure their
behavior or look at their sex acts, he recorded their words (Weeks,
1986). In fact after the initial edition of his classic work on perversion,
he was inundated with the stories of individuals' sexual experiences. He
was not asked to make sense of their bodies but to make sense of their
sexuality in the context of their stories. Psychology might be well served
to learn the lesson of the "speaking pervert." Whatever the meaning of
sex or gender, it must situate itself in a narrative which frames it.

Following the lines set by narrative, one can ask, for example, why
spending was the orgasmic metaphor for the cost conscious Victorians.
To spend or to save was not just a moral question posed to the purse
strings but a lively debate in treatises on masturbation (Neuman, 1975).
With respect to the latter, excess spending could cause nerve damage,
intellectual disrepair and atrophied sex organs. Conversely saving was
prerequisite to social, economic and intellectual success. When orgasms
were considered a precondition to conception not so long ago
going and dying were the idioms. Perhaps an orgasm that could mean
your replacement was on the way slanted the experience in a more
melancholy direction. Now we don't go, we come, and in contrast to the
Victorians, we can (and maybe should) increase our comings through
masturbation. This is a certainly major turnabout in cultural narratives
of sexuality.

Regarding masturbation and the positive connotations of coming,
Jeffrey Weeks (1985, p. 23) characterizes our first masturbatory

88 Engendering Sex through Narrative

entrepenuer, Hugh Hefner, as a symbol of the acceptance of marketed
fantasy. Accepting marketed fantasy, of course, means certain transfor-
mations in the relationship of inside to outside a hallowed boundary
in individualism and in the relationship of public to private. For
Weeks, marketing fantasy is essential to the continued expansion of
commodity based capitalism. Within this economy, there can be no limit
to desire. Otherwise how could we justifiably give up a perfectly func-
tional overcoat for one that is a different color, longer or shorter and
adorned with shoulder pads. Hugh Hefner did not create an alliance
between sexuality and economy, he merely exploited a long standing
intersection between economics, arousal, and orgasm (Foucault, 1986).
Whether in sex or business, we Americans can come and come, but we
are haunted with the question of whether we ever arrive. This a formal
privileging of process over product.

Contemporary advertising also confirms that consuming desire can
traverse both the economic and sexual spheres. What Hefner pioneered
in the 1950's has become a motif in mainstream commercials. We now
watch stylish ads which utterly obscure the object of desire and simply
invoke the process of desiring itself. I implicate not only products such
as Obsession but those ads for the car Infiniti where the car is never
seen, a tactic more successfully employed by the auto company, Saturn.
We should not be in the least surprised at such persuasive tactics. After
all, if it is just fantasy that you are marketing, showing the car or product
itself is really secondary.

The analysis of any cultural narrative depends upon an openness
to what anthropologists Harriet Whitehead and Sherry Ortner call,
mutual metaphorization (Ortner & Whitehead, 1982). Being labeled a
girl or a boy is not meant to denote a body. The elaborate rituals of pink
and blue, with blue becoming supposedly desexualized with maturity
(like the universal "he") and pink remaining a signifier of the feminine
(Gallop, 1988), are not prominent because the members of our society
need assistance to recognize the sex of the physical body. Rather being
a girl and being a boy represent the insertion of our physicality into
numerous chains of signifiers which structure our culture and make sure
we go about reproducing and having sex within it. To trace back these
chains of meaning we need to follow the endless sexual metaphors which
inhabit non-sexual discourses and the non-sexual metaphors imported
into the realm of sexuality. Without the rich reservoir of mutual
metaphorization, the sex joke and perhaps sex would have died long
ago. Freud once warned us that psychology would be chasing down bad
jokes in its search for the psychological.

Kareen Ror Malone 89

By attending to such metaphors, other disciplines have begun to
disrobe the fantasy body that motivates the physical body in its sexual
tastes. Our fantastic bodies are images which accompany the often
irrational narratives and practices through which we learn our sex and
sexuality. Cooties, farts, sissies, and childhood theories of birth all
constitute a legacy of sexual meanings. These translate the cultural place
of sex, reproduction, and gender onto the desiring body. Although
accomplished in a haphazard manner, the cultural function of sexual
activities nonetheless reflects economic, epistemological, and political
dimensions of human experience. Our physical sexuality is always
mediated by signifiers. Purely physical sex may be a delicious fantasy but
it is only a fantasy. Moreover, it is a fantasy that is interdependent with
spiritual fantasies of sex, economic fantasies of sex (making it) and
political fantasies of sex (in terms of which feminism has been so
perceptive). Sexuality and sex make us functional or dysfunctional
members of our social group and will continue to perform this role as
long as society needs mothers and fathers, bodies and desires. Further,
sexuality buttresses the value we place on socially produced objects. Do
beautiful women sell beautiful cars or do the cars sell the women or are
they interchangeable as feminism suggests.

Freud is probably the most famous decoder of fantastic bodies and
of the narratives that create them. Maligned or ossified by many in
psychology, Freudian theory has been pivotal in the reconsideration of
sexuality in other disciplines. Freud has been useful in part because of
his focus on infantile representations of the body and sexuality. In other
words, Freud never conceived of sexuality outside of symbolism and
imagination. Once one recognizes that Freud inaugurates his re-
searches at the point of memory, hallucination, symptom, dream, or
image all of which entail processes of representation it is possible
to reread his entire corpus on sexuality as a meditation on the properties
of that space between the real of the physical and cultural networks of
signifiers brought to us by our parents. Despite maintaining the horizon
of the real, Freud's concept of primary repression means that we are
forever denied access to that real, a limitation that mystics apparently
transcend and psychology persistently tries to circumvent. In contrast,
psychoanalysis has humbly foregone this challenge:

In conformity with its peculiar nature, psychoanalysis does not try
to describe what a woman is that would be a task it could scarcely
perform but sets about enquiring how she comes into being
(Freud, 1965, p. 103).

90 Engendering Sex through Narrative

Throughout his many writings on the topic, Freud debates the
importance of the dichotomy active versus passive for the understanding
of sexual difference. On the one hand he remarks that active as male
and passive as female is as far as the psychological understanding of the
sexes has gone. A cursory glance at the rather grim history of specula-
tions on sex and gender bear Freud out. Whether one consults Galen
or Aristotle or William Acton, we get a clear impression that the
container womb clearly signifies the female nature as receptive and
fundamentally passive. On the other hand, Freud observes that passivity
and activity are inadequate to mature masculinity and femininity.

For its part, present and past pornography testifies to the arousing
nature of repeated enactments of the themes of activity and passivity.
(We would expect pornography not to represent the most mature
expression of sexual difference.) Steven Marcus (1964), in his study of
Victorian sexuality, finds the dichotomy well represented in the pornog-
raphy of the era. The Story OfO indicates that the theme has lost little
appeal in the twentieth century. An example from the well known
"Fanny Hill" illustrates how the active and passive is played out in the
sexual encounter of man and woman:

He pass'd his instrument so slow, that we lost sight of it inch by inch,
till at length it was taken into the soft laboratory of love, and the
mossy mount of each could fairly met together. In the mean time,
we could plainly mark the prodigious effect the progression of this
delightful energy wrought in this delicious girl, gradually heighten-
ing her beauty as they heightened her pleasure. Her countenance,
and her whole frame, grew more animated... her naturally brilliant
eyes now sparkled with a tenfold lustre: her languor vanish'd and
she appeared quick spirited, and alive all over. (Cleland, 1985, p.
116).

Of course all of us get a little spring in our step when sexually
aroused, but the point is the directionality of the agency. For Aristotle,
man is form and energy and woman is matter; for John Cleland the same
arrangement is less dryly put but nonetheless dictates the charac-
terization of the sexual encounter.

There have been innumerable theories about why and how activity
and passivity intersect with masculinity and femininity. Lacanian
psychoanalysis relates this conjunction to the acquisition of language.
Anyone who has had occasion to hear the rambling of a thought disorder
probably realizes that a person's being can be most tenuously connected
to his or her speaking. Anyone who has taken sixth grade grammar

Kareen Ror Malone 9 1

realizes that the active subject and passive object structure any ut-
terance. This linguistic stricture is further accentuated in the two voices
of the verb. Lacanian thought asserts that we are socialized into a
connection between our being and our symbolic system through the
drama of sexuality. In other words, we must learn how to position
ourselves within the opposition of activity and passivity to embody the
structure of language: the ritual of embodiment is the construction of
the opposite sexes. More generally, in the Lacanian interpretation of
Freud, cognition and gender are interdependent This Lacanian move
makes sense out of the integration within Freud of sexuality, metap-
sychological speculations, and the talking cure, an integration which has
not been effectively addressed by most re-interpretations of
Freudianism. Lacan's hypothesis, quite overwhelming in its particulars,
is at least confirmed at the general level by social practices. Until very
recently, highly symbolic activities such as logic were considered out of
the intellectual grasp of the average woman and were speculated to pose
a danger to her ovaries. On a more pedestrian level, there is no tangible
reason that scientific methods are designated as hard.

Others speculate that Freud's association between active and pas-
sive and the two sexes reflects traditionally hierarchial social relations
between men and women: The dominant individual possesses agency
and choice, that is, power. The folks on the bottom have either been
forced to submit as in subjugated peoples or possess a nature not given
to choice, sovereignty, and power. I read an interesting "support the
troops" poster that goes, "don't let Hussein saddamize the world." Here
again the possession of the penis is associated with dominance and
power and the subordinate position is associated with a receiving orifice.
It appears that the reading of the sexes through activity and passivity is
still alive and kicking in our collective imagination. Man and woman,
masculinity and femininity, carry a very heavy symbolic weight. These
images of gender are rapidly changing as the social positions of the sexes
transform. One can think of the incredible emphasis on clitoral
sexuality, glorified as never before, to realize that images of the body
are responding to significant cultural shifts.

The position and symbolization of the feminine are a place of
marked tension in contemporary society. If statistics on childcare and
household work indicate anything, the feminine is still steadfastly as-
sociated with the maternal and domestic. Expressions such as jugs for
the exalted female bustline further evidence the entrenched conflation
of woman with mother. In slang expressions such as boobs the female's
most prominent secondary sexual characteristic enjoins its bearer with

92 Engendering Sex through Narrative

the passive and the dumb. Calling a whole person a boob or the
vernacular boob-tube fully unveils the connotations of boobs for
breasts. We could profitably compare the qualification of this body part
with that of the hand for example (so dear to phenomenological
psychology). No body minds being called handy, or good with their
hands. It is nearly an oxymoron to be called good with your boobs
because in cultural and sexual dichotomies flesh is not active. In keeping
with Freud's sexual opposition, flesh should be molded and shaped. One
sees this in women's fashions throughout the ages, from corsets to lift
and separate bras.

At the same time, we are becoming a culture less of sexual opposi-
tion and more of sexual equality, a shift concurrent with many changes
in the images of women's flesh. At the present juncture, we appear to
be a culture in awe of hard flesh. Our fascination with the body as
machine apparently leaves the world of the simpleton boob behind.
Further, this cultural pre-occupation is not considered primarily a mas-
culine pursuit. Both men and women mold their flesh with the nautilus.
With specific regard to women, around eighty percent of American
females report they are dieting; quite stridently, the image of fleshpot
is being shed by its typical occupants.

However, such changes should not tempt us to disdain past images
and designations of sex and sexuality. If Freud is right, the fantastic body
is immature and anchored in the past. Our revulsions, compulsions, and
wayward desires seldom meet the expectations devised by morality and
consciousness. I would suggest then that we listen to as well as transcend
our irrational residues the silly perhaps even infantile fantasies of
gratification and desire of which American advertisers make such good
use.

Consequently, I would not ignore lingering images of the body from
by-gone eras or the narratives which give them meaning. Given the
imbrication of the maternal with the flesh, it is doubtful that women and
the feminine will completely separate from a number of traditional
associations. Perhaps, when technology replaces woman in the process
of gestation, the psychological body will radically transform. Nonethe-
less, our fantasy bodies are a density of experience that resists any
singular definition of its pleasures. This means of course an endless
horizon for the psychological study of sex.

Kareen Ror Malone 93

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Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

Christopher M. Aanstoos

And the light that shines above the heavenly vault, the support of
all creation, the support of the universe, in the supreme and highest
realms, is none other than the light that dwells in the human body.
Its actual manifestation is the warmth that is felt when the flesh is
touched. (Upanishads)

The Fundamental Openness of Embodied Existence

Through the body, we embody a network of lived relations, with
other people and the world. How can we describe this intertwining
nexus, this 'bodying forth'? Let us begin phenomenologically, by taking
seriously our embodied experiencing as it shows itself. To do so, we must
suspend judgment. We must suspend belief in the traditional object-
centered metaphysics of the body. Instead, let us take as real whatever
bodily reveals itself as real. Rather than violating that experienced
givenness by subjecting it to the extrinsic confines of any conceptual
categories imposed from outside of experience, we shall attend faithful-
ly to what presents itself, taking it precisely as it presents itself. Let us
look with appreciation, wonder, awe, upon our actually lived bodily
experience.

Such an exploration begins when we extricate ourselves from all
reductionisms that naively conceptualize the body as an encapsulated
object. I do not deny the possibility of viewing the body as an object.

Christopher M. Aanstoos 95

Indeed, such an impersonal viewpoint which discloses the body as a
mass of tissue, blood, organs, and neuronal networks is the necessary
underpinning of the surgical attitude. The fact that the body lends itself
to both first person and third person viewpoints is of great significance
to an understanding of its ontology (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962,
1964/1968; Pollio, 1982, pp. 53-75; Wertz, 1987; Zaner, 1981). I am
simply saying that we will never understand the first person experience
of one's own body by reducing it to a third person perspective. The body
is not only the object of perception, but the subject of perception as well
(Marcel, 1952; Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962; Sartre, 1943/1956; Wertz,
1987). Or, more precisely, the body lives in the space between the
concepts of object and subject. So let us set aside externalized concep-
tions of the body, in order to explore the living, carnal fecundity of
embodiment.

The body is a movement of the heart, reaching out to touch, to
embrace as ecstasy. Following Merleau-Ponty, I take the ecstatic as
a comprehension of our embodiment. To describe the body of our
experience as ecstatic is to assert its ontological character as disclosive-
ness, as openness onto a world. For Merleau-Ponty, this ek-static open-
ness of the body forms our deepest relational intertwining with the flesh
of that world (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968). This shared "flesh" is also
evoked by Roll's (1986) use of the term "skinship" to describe our
relations with each other and the world. The body has "carnal
knowledge" of the flesh of the world. "All sense perception involves
something like a carnal embrace" (Lingis, 1985, p. 52). In the sense that
"our flesh lines and envelops all the visible and tangible things which
nonetheless surround it, the world and I are within one another"
(Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968, p. 123). Therefore, "every perception is a...
communion... the complete expression outside ourselves of our percep-
tual powers and a coition [an intercourse], so to speak, of our body with
things" (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 320).

This does not mean that my body and the world are the same. They
are distinguishable, certainly, but not separable. The body world
boundary is a porous one, permitting of unceasing interpenetrability.
Lingis amplifies Merleau-Ponty's point by noting that "perception is an
inscription of a dynamic version of the outside within and a reflection
of oneself on the outside" (Lingis, 1985, p. 51). This analysis is most
clear, Lingis points out, with regard to sexuality. For example, "to see
someone sprawled on the bed as seductive is to feel, forming within
oneself, the movements of taking him or her. The other is structured
perceptibly as a surface destined for kisses and embraces, the exterior

96 Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

relief of one's inward lines of feeling" (Lingis, 1985, p. 51). This ecstatic
body is thus a "body of love" (Brown, 1966), a "movement of sympathy"
(Levin, 1988b, p. 298). Merleau-Ponty points out

if the qualities [of the sensible] radiate around them a certain mode
of existence, if they have the power to cast a spell... a sacramental
value, this is because the sentient subject does not posit them as
objects, but enters into a sympathetic relation with them, makes
them his own. (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, pp. 213-214)

Through this ecstatic embracing of the world, our embodiment
discloses its there. This reflective bodily mode is a "locus of meaning"
(Shapiro, 1975, p. 14; also cf. Gendlin, 1962). We embody and express
this ontological openness through our posture. Vassi's (1984) evocative
analysis of "lying down" and Straus's (1966) of "the upright posture"
present two postural modes that exemplify this proto-ontological sig-
nificance of posture (also see Keleman, 1975). Our stance, our move-
ment, our gait, our comportment, the gestures of our hands. Every
enactment of our embodied being offers us our existence as an ontologi-
cal openness. And also therefore calls forth our existential responsive-
ness. Thus,

In every disposition of our embodiment, the existential possibilities
in this relationship lay claim to our guardian awareness, and appeal
to our capacity for a manifest responsiveness. Every gesture and
every movement takes place within the dimensionality of the on-
tological difference, measured by the depth we open up. Moving
within this space, moved by its indifferent grace, we are charged at
all times with questions of motivation. Regardless of our level of
awareness, regardless even of the degree of our caring, our bearing
continually bears witness to the enabling presence of a field of
Being. How might we bear this charge with grace and dignity? And
what difference would we like our bearing to make in the world of
our brief passage? (Levin, 1985, p. 92).

In reflecting on that call to own the ontological difference that we
manifest, let us also remember that our embodiment is unwarranted.
We did nothing to warrant embodiment. It is a gift, an unwarranted gift
(Levin, 1985, p. 68). From life itself. And with it a fundamental indeb-
tedness to recognize and to live the significance of what is received. It
is up to us to accept this motivational charge and to live it with resolution
and authenticity. If our every gesture can be a consecratory act of
world-disclosure,

Christopher M. Aanstoos 97

what does it take for this possibility to be realized? Mindfulness,
care, love, silence, openness: attitudes carried by, and in, the body,
attitudes inhabiting the body, shaping and choreographing our
gestures and movements: how we point, touch, hold, and handle;
how we sit, stand and walk; how we inhabit a space. (Levin, 1988b,
p. 289)

Yet, there is also within the human a tendency "to lose touch"
a tendency toward forgetfulness of our Being. We "lose our footing,
stumble and fall" (Levin, 1985, p. 95). Or, as Heidegger (1927/1962, pp.
219-224) has expressed it, a state of "falleness" constitutes the average
everdayness of Dasein, the There-Being. Within average everydayness
we do not notice the ontological difference we open up. We may even
act as if we were encapsulated automatons.

Nevertheless, we may instead re-member our embodiment as a
presencing, an openness. Let us meditatively recollect this oft' forgotten
significance of our embodiment as openness and reflect upon our
ontological dimensionality of worlding a there.

Our embodiment presences its openness in a myriad of ways, a
typology of which is far from established. Openness, as an ontological
significance, can appear across even the most diverse ontic events. The
ecstatic as a "placing beyond" is, after all, particularly manifested in both
orgasm and panic. And so many variations in between. We may feel a
"gut reaction." Or a "broken heart." "Cold feet." A "loss of face". Or
we may feel ourselves being tapped on the shoulder, so to speak. Or we
may feel the"chill in the air." Or we may feel the twinkle in the other's
eyes. Or we may instantly hear betrayal in the other's voice. Or see it in
their face. Or we may be gripped by a shadowy vision, dark and frighten-
ing. Or we may burst into giggles. Or goose pimples. Or ulcers. Or
madness. Or awe, as I felt when my five year old daughter described the
tooth fairy as "wings of love." I just burst open in awe.

So where in this plethora of polymorphously engaged embodiment
shall we dig in? I will examine the following six expressions of this
ecstatic intertwining of bodyhood worldhood: first, the habitual body's
disclosure of its own form; second, the engaged body's disclosure of
things; third, the praxic body's disclosure of space; fourth, the intimate
body's disclosure of others; fifth, the transpersonal body's disclosure of
one-ness; and sixth, the ecological body's disclosure of the world's body.
In each of these six inter-related strands, we will discover the embracing
ontological openness of ecstatic embodiment.

98 Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

Six Expressions of Embodiment

The Habitual Body's Disclosure of Its Own Form

I will begin with the body's disclosure of its own form, since ques-
tions of body image seem most evidently tied to the objective viewpoint
on the body. However, even in the experience of thematizing my body
as an object, that image of the body remains thoroughly subtended by
the corporeal schema I am embodying.

Merleau-Ponty's (1945/1962, pp. 73-89) unforgettable analyses of
phantom limb and anosognosia make very clear this irreducibility of the
corporeal schema to the body as object. The person who has suddenly
lost a limb continues to engage the world via the embodiment of a
two-armed existence. In contrast, the anosognosic fails to embody the
still present but now dysfunctional limb at all. In the former, the arm
which is now objectively absent is still lived as a presence, whereas, in
the latter, the arm which is still objectively present is now lived as an
absence. Thus, even such fundamental profiles of our bodily schema as
presence and absence reveal the operative intentionality of the body of
experience.

Merleau-Ponty's discovery can be illustrated in a wide variety of
contexts, across progressively more subtle alterations of embodiment.
For example, like the phantom limb, obese persons who undergo drastic
weight loss following intestinal bypass surgery will continue to live the
presence of their formerly obese body (Moss, 1984). For instance, they
continue to embody obesity by the way a chair still presents itself as "too
small" to occupy, long after objective measures would indicate other-
wise. The body that discloses and is addressed by that chair is the obese
body, the bodily form still being embodied. That projective presencing
is precisely why drawings of the body are expressions of vision rather
than measures of artistic ability.

A different sort of example was given me by an employee of an
amusement park, who must wear a rabbit costume with ears that
protrude a foot beyond her own head. When she became habituated to
this costume that is to say, once she in-habited it, lived in it, embodied
it those ears became as much a part of her body as her own limbs,
and as irremovable. As a result, even after she has taken off the costume,
she still finds herself ducking to go under doorways that would otherwise
bump against her extended "rabbit ears." Here we have a case of a
double alteration: first, the ears become a part of her while the costume
is on, and second, the ears remain a part of her after the costume is
removed.

Christopher M. Aanstoos 99

But this extension of the body into things should not be taken as
unusual. We all do so. For instance, when we write, we may not even
feel the pressure of the pen against our fingers, but against the paper,
as the tip end of the pen glides across its surface. We have situated our
embodied presence there on the paper (McConville, 1978, p. 108).

This extended embodiment is possible because our habitual body
acquires a carnal knowledge of its things, as the obverse side of its own
flesh. For instance, Wertz has described the blind man's cane in terms
very much like I have just done concerning the pen. He indicated that
the cane's way of palpating things is comprehensible only in terms of
the body's involved kinship with the world: "the cane is enveloped and
swept up in the unity of a touching intention which can be carried out
only by something that can both touch and be touched" (Wertz, 1987,
p. 134). As Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, p. 143) has noted, "to get used
to a hat, a car, or a stick is to be transposed into them, or conversely to
incorporate them into the bulk of our body. Habit expresses our power
of dilating our being-in-the-world."

The Engaged Body's Disclosure of Things

To summarize, these are ways our embodiment extends beyond the
range of the skin-encapsulated object of mechanistic physiology. By
virtue of its openness onto a world, our embodiment embracingly
discloses the worldly significations of our involvements in the very form
it embodies. But this disclosiveness is true not only of the habitual body's
incorporative capacity. Many other types of examples abound concern-
ing our body's embracing disclosure of the physiognomies of things as
they present themselves in the spontaneity of the moment. For instance,
van den Berg's (1972) touching example of how the placing of the
holiday tablecloth on the table transforms the ambience completely.
Such transformations are possible on the basis of our engagement with
the things of our world, an engagement that is embodied. For example,
Heidegger has noted that

When I go toward the door of the lecture hall, I am already there,
and I could not go to it at all if I were not such that I am [already]
there. I am never here only, as this encapsulated body; rather, I am
there, that is, I already pervade the room, and only thus can I move
through it. (Heidegger, 1954/1971a, p. 157)

Likewise, Boss has given us the following example: "while perceiv-
ing the window sill... I extend myself bodily far beyond this fingertip to

100 Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

that window sill (Boss, 1979, pp. 102-103). In this sense, our lives are
"ingrained in the things of our existence" (Roll, 1987, p. 17).

This ability to bring to bear that embodied involvement is also the
hallmark of musical and athletic performance. The drumsticks, the
keyboard, the skis, the baseball bat, the tennis racquet, the golf club, the
gun, the sword all become extensions of the body. But so too does
the ball itself, even after it has been thrown or struck. A professional
quarterback describes his experience of a pass completion to a receiver
as a "connection" with that receiver, despite the fact that an objective
measurement shows the two are fifty yards apart at the time.

Let us consider in some detail another example of this experienced
connectedness across a distance (cf. Brown, 1966, pp. 156-157). Agolfer
putts the ball toward a small hole twenty feet away. As the ball rolls too
far toward the right, the golfer leans to the left, to "pull" the ball more
in that direction. Just as striking a ball to get it to spin a certain way is
called putting "English" on it in many racquet sports, so too is this
common experience known as using "body English." Now, from an
objective viewpoint, even the golfer might say there is no such thing as
contact across a distance with a moving ball. And, if the golfer is no
longer in contact with the moving ball, then such bodily leaning is
completely superfluous. Nevertheless, it is the body of this very golfer
which comports itself in terms of just this continuing relationship with
the ball. As McConville (1978, p. 108), has shown, the praxic body is
already geared to the situation prior to knowledge: a situation in which
the body, the ball, and the terrain over which it must roll are all united
by the intentional arc of the necessary shot. Hence, in this case of an
errant shot, "body english is an act of using the body in order to regain
the balance of the body-ball-terrain system which is upset by the errant
shot" That is to say, the leaning movement expresses the golfer's
continuing embodiment of that unifying intentional arc.

This embodied organizational unity of person and situation is
illuminated most starkly by moments of danger. For instance, while
bicycling one day at peak speed, a large insect bounced off my eyelid,
which had closed just as that insect that I had not seen bounced
off it. I had not seen the bug, but I had embodied a life-saving relation-
ship with it. Another time, just as I was losing my balance while bicycling
too fast around a curve, I found that my right leg had extended out, and
saved my balance. I had not thought to do that, but it was exactly what
was needed to prevent.a serious injury. In these cases, my body engaged
the operational unity of body bicycle terrain, disclosively presencing
it as a relational whole. Such is the experience of finesse.

Christopher M. Aanstoos 101

The Praxic Body's Disclosure ofSpatiality

Our embodiment's world-disclosiveness is illuminated not only by
our relations with the equipmentality of that world. The very spatiality
of the situation is essentially valorized by our embodied intentionality
within it. That is to say, our embodiment comprises a "melodic arc"
(Levin, 1988b, p. 290). It discloses space in terms of distances and
directionalities, lines and fields of force, vectors of possible action. For
us, things appear "here" or "there," "next to," "in front of," or "behind"
all relational features of our embodied disclosure of them. Of course,
this spatiality could not be detected by the detached rulers of objective
measurement. Embodied space is of an altogether different order than
the merely external geometric space mapped by Cartesian coordinates.
Permeating and subtending this abstract, empty space is the spatiality
of the engaged body. Merleau-Ponty has described this difference by
noting that embodied "spatiality is not, like that of external objects... a
spatiality of position, but a spatiality of situation" (Merleau-Ponty,
1945/1962, p. 100). Thus, ip contrast to merely external space, bodily
lived space:

envelops its parts instead of spreading them out, because it is the
darkness needed in the theater to show up the performance, the
background somnolence or reserve of vague power against which
the gesture and its aim stand out, the zone of not-being in front of
which precise being, figures and points can come to light... This
occurs by virtue of its being polarized by its tasks, of its existence
towards them, in its collecting together of itself in pursuit of its aims.
(Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, pp. 100-101)

what counts for the orientation ... is not my body as... a thing in
objective space, but as a system of possible actions, a virtual body
in its phenomenal place defined by its task. My body is wherever
there is work to be done. (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 250)

Spatial relations, such as closeness and distance, are grasped
primordially in terms of my embodiment of things as near or far, with
respect to my concernful involvement with them. Heidegger describes
how we even make "the remoteness of something disappear" (Heideg-
ger, 1927/1962, p. 139). But, again, this capacity is not something
measurable with objective rulers. As Heidegger noted:

When one is primarily and even exclusively oriented towards
remotenesses as measured distances, the primordial spatiality of

102 Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

Being-in is concealed. That which is presumably "closest" is by no
means that which is at the smallest distance "from us." (Heidegger,
1927/1962, p. 141)

This "primordial spatiality" is carved out, not by objective rulers,
but by our involvement, our interest, our "circumspective concern":
"Circumspective concern decides as to the closeness and faraess of what
is proximally ready-to-hand environmentally. Whatever this concern
dwells alongside beforehand is what is closest" (Heidegger, 1927/1962,
p. 142). Heidegger gives us two examples. He points out that the street
we walk upon, seemingly the closest and most real thing of all, is actually
much more remote than the friend we encounter twenty yards in front
of us. Likewise, "when, for instance, a man wears a pair of spectacles
which are so close to him distantially that they are 'sitting on his nose,'
they are environmentally more remote from him than the picture on the
opposite wall. Such equipment has so little closeness that often it is
proximally quite impossible to find" (Heidegger, 1927/1962, p. 141).
Indeed, several persons who wear eyeglasses have described to me
experiences of searching for them without noticing that they were
wearing them at the time.

McConville (1978, p. 115) has also illustrated the way space is
carved out bodily by our concernful projects by describing how his old
experience as a running back in football still gives him a sense of near
and far in terms of whether it would be short or long yardage for a first
down in a football game. It is through his halfback body that he engages
and inhabits that spatiality. A more common example is the way that a
branch on a tree does not look as far away when we are on the ground
as the ground looks when we are on that branch.

But it is not only distances that are so valorized. The very feel of the
space expresses our embodied relation with it. For example, the way a
soccer player, moving forward with the ball, valorizes the spatiality of
the soccer field around the suddenly unblocked lane that "leads" to the
goal. Or the way an ex-baseball player describes his experience, even
after retiring from the game: "every day I had the smell of the ball park
in my nose, and the cool of the grass in my feet" (from the film Field of
Dreams). Or the way a musician improvises at the keyboard, described
by Sudnow (1978, p. 141) in the following way: "as the time got into the
fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, everywhere, altogether new relation-
ships were being fulfilled." Or, Merleau-Ponty's example of the or-
ganist, of whom he writes: "it is not in objective space that the organist
is in fact playing. In reality his movements... are consecratory gestures:

Christopher M. Aanstoos 103

they draw affective vectors, discover emotional sources, and create a
space of expressiveness" (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, pp. 145-146). His
movements are consecratory gestures.

This embodied disclosure of spatiality extends also to our percep-
tion of movement. For instance: "sometimes I see the steeple motion-
less against the sky with clouds floating above it, and sometimes the
clouds appear still and the steeple falls through space" (Merleau-Ponty,
1948/1964b, p. 52).

A similar example can be experienced when sitting on a dock
extending over a body of water. Sometimes the water will appear to be
moving rightward under the dock, while at other times the dock will
appear to be moving leftward across the water. These differences are
neither arbitrary nor intellectually constructed. Rather, as Merleau-
Ponty has shown: "movement and rest distribute themselves in our
surroundings... according to the way we settle ourselves in the world and
the position our bodies assume in it" (Merleau-Ponty, 1948/1964b, p.
52).

In other words, movement and rest are disclosed in relation to that
place I am embodying, so that "in each instance the one which seems
stationary is the one we have chosen as our abode and which, for the
time being, is our environment... the looked at object in which I anchor
myself will always seem fixed" (Merleau-Ponty, 1948/1 964b, p. 52). It is
a question of whether I am embodying a perspective from the steeple
or the clouds, on the dock or in the water.

Merleau-Ponty gives us an example of being seated on a train,
stopped next to another one. When one starts, we may be momentarily
disoriented as to which is actually moving and which remains stationary.
How? If, at the time a train starts moving, you are, say, reading a
magazine, or playing cards, then you feel it is the other train that has
begun moving. However, if at that moment you are, say, admiring an
attractive person aboard the other train, then you would likely feel it
was your own train that had begun moving.

If you've not ridden enough trains to have encountered this ex-
ample, the variation of being in a car, stopped behind a bus at a traffic
light can serve to illustrate the same point. The light changes from red
to green, the bus driver shifts gears, and the bus begins rolling backward
a bit, toward your car. If you had situated yourself within your car (say,
looking at the odometer), you would experience the movement there,
at the bus. However, I once experienced the reverse. Having been so
absorbed by an advertising sign on the back of the bus that I had situated
myself on the bus, as it were, when the movement began I found myself

104 Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

squeezing harder on my car's breaks, to stop the apparent forward roll
of my car toward the bus. This despite the road having a slight uphill
incline at that point.

The Intimate Body's Disclosure of Others

Next, I will examine the most intimate embrace of all: how our
embodiment opens onto, and discloses, other people. The intimacy of
this embrace is so deeply embodied. Merleau-Ponty has argued that
"the constitution of others does not come after that of the body; others
and my body are bora together from the original ecstasy" (Merleau-
Ponty, 1960/1964c, p. 174). In that sense, he says, "the body proper is a
premonition of the other person" (Merleau-Ponty, 1960/1964c, p. 175).
Please note the two senses that "premonition" can have here: as a
premonition o/others and as another's premonition. "It is as if the other
person's intention inhabited my body and mine his," adds Merleau-
Ponty (1945/1962, p. 185). My body and the other are so expressive of
each other there can be no reduction to an extrinsic, causal relationship.
So let us reflect on this embodied disclosure of intersubjectivity. I
believe it offers us the implicit phenomenology of what psychology has
termed "body language" but failed to understand by presupposing
body and other as merely extrinsically related.

Merleau-Ponty's point here is that "it is precisely my body which
perceives the body of another person" (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p.
354). It is my body that inhabits the gestures of the other and so discovers
in the other "a miraculous prolongation of my own intentions" (Mer-
leau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 354). Consider the following three epigram-
matic descriptions of this miracle:

I live in the facial expressions of the other, as I feel him living in
mine. (Merleau-Ponty, 1960/1964a, p. 146)

My body and the other's are one whole, two sides of one and the
same phenomenon. (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 354)

To begin with [other people] are not there as minds, or even as
"psychisms," but such for example as we face them in anger or
love faces, gestures, spoken words to which our own respond
without thoughts intervening, to the point that we sometimes turn
their words back upon them even before they have reached us, as
surely as, more surely than, if we had understood each one of us
pregnant with the others and confirmed by them in his body.
(Merleau-Ponty, 1960/1964, p. 181)

Christopher M. Aanstoos 105

I believe this is also the implicit core of Laing's (1965) under-
standing of the schizophrenic's experience of being disembodied of
being the one who is not confirmed by others, but who is invalidated and
who embodies this feeling of being unreal precisely as being disem-
bodied. Laing (1972) has also shown the ways by which the identified
patient in a pathogenic family embodied his other family members. Paul,
at twenty-three, experienced his right side as masculine, his left side as
feminine, his left side as younger than the right side, the two sides not
meeting, and both as rotting. Paul's mother told him he "took after" his
father, and his father told him he "took after" his mother. His father
told him his mother was not a "real woman" and his mother told him his
father was not a "real man."

His mother thought she could be a better husband and father than
his father. And his father thought he could be a better wife and
mother than his mother... To summarize: on his right side he takes
after father's view of him as taking after his mother, an unreal
woman and phoney man. And on his left side he takes after his
mother's view of him as taking after his father, an unreal man and
phoney woman. (Laing, 1969, pp. 56-57)

Laing concludes his analysis of Paul by stating that "his body was a
sort of mausoleum, a haunted graveyard in which the ghosts of several
generations still walked, while their physical remains rotted away. The
family had buried their dead in each other" (Laing, 1972, p. 57).

The reverse is also true: we embody not only the pathogeny of our
relatives, but their loving presence as well. Murray (1975) nicely ex-
emplified this by his sense of a habitual gesture of his: a certain way of
sweeping his arm while talking that he had incorporated from his
brother. As he said, he had embodied his brother's arm, and with it the
loving presence of his brother. These familial resemblances are quite
common. How often have we remarked that "she has her father's smile"
or "her mother's ear for music," Levin quotes a blacksmith, who says "I
have... my grandfather's... hands. Hands last a long time, you know. A
village sees the same hands century after century" (Levin, 1985, p. 146).

This disclosive embodiment of others is what Husserl called the
phenomenon of coupling. It is nowhere more evident than in our
embodied relationships with our most intimate others. Our children.
Our lovers. When, for example, we say that a man knows a woman "in
the biblical sense" that is to say, in the oldest sense we have we
mean that he has carnal knowledge of her, that is to say, an embodied
relation with her.

106 Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

This embodiment of intimacy is also exemplified perhaps most
dramatically by moments of danger. But this time danger to the other.
A woman feels pain in her chest, just as her mother is having a heart
attack miles away. Another wakes up suddenly, in agony, as her friend
is being severely beaten, elsewhere in the city. Roll (1987) discusses a
variety of such psychic experiences, and arrives at an understanding of
these relationships in terms of the body of memory.

This embodied intimacy is lived not only in moments of danger but
also in the most everyday ways. Close women friends will frequently find
that their menstrual cycles, which had previously been different, have
become synchronized, their bodies expressing the harmonic conver-
gence of their relationship. Also, breast-feeding mothers will begin
lactating upon merely hearing their infant cry out for food.

Our embodied relation with each other is intuitively evident in the
way that a pregnant woman embodies that relation with her baby. And
the way that a father does. For instance, when my wife was pregnant for
the first time, I also embodied pregnancy in a way. Like my wife, I had
to urinate more often, and I got so tired I eventually had to nap during
the day. My body was being pregnant too. And, during the pregnancy
with our second child, I felt something else, more subtle, but once felt,
unmistakable. A dense heaviness, in my lower abdominal area. And I
felt I was weightier. Another description of this phenomenon has
recently been offered by Reharick (1987). He focused on his experience
of swelling in his hands and feet, which occurred while his wife was in
her eighth month of pregnancy.

Primitive people those without conceptual inhibitions to such
experiences embody this male's experience of pregnancy even into
childbirth itself. I have even heard of an island culture whose husbands
writhe in pain as their wives give birth. Though there is no sanction in
our culture for such male's childbirth experience, men's embodied
reactions to their wives pregnancies are now so commonly noted as to
have been labeled: "the Couvade syndrome." Of course, we should
understand the term "syndrome" here as indicative of a prejudgment of
pathology made by an approach whose presuppositions foreclose the
possibility of its reality.

Our relationship with our children also offers striking evidence of
this embodied intertwining. My experience of my own children has been
literally striking. As each of them was learning to walk, they frequently
fell forward. Unlike falling backward and landing on a soft diaper, falling
forward hits a hard floor, or worse, a hard sidewalk. In such cases, my
reaction was to wince. This wince was an unmediated contraction to

Christopher M. Aanstoos 107

pain, to the jolt that I experienced directly through my own body.
Though it was my child who landed on the sidewalk, we were both struck
by the pain of that fall. I embodied their falling even before they actually
hit the sidewalk. As one was falling, I would feel a moment of dizziness,
as the sidewalk shifted position, from beneath to ahead, from perpen-
dicular to parallel. Just as the golfer leans to keep the balance of the
body-ball-terrain situation as it is being upset by the errant roll of the
putted ball, so too can a parent embody their child's falling as a tipping
of the body sidewalk other situation.

The parent's embodied empathy may be most visually depicted by
the father who grimaces in pain while the baby sitting on his lap receives
her inoculation shot. I am convinced that scene is so archetypally
recognizable it could have been a Norman Rockwell cover. That em-
pathic embodiment is the miracle of being a parent. That is the miracle
of any loving embrace, and the disclosive presencing of our fundamental
openness.

This lived bodily rapport with the other's orientation is especially
vivid with those we feel closest. With them we feel innumerable pricks
and prods, of many kinds. But it can also be discerned in more casual
relationships as well, such as a conversation among friends. For ex-
ample, I was standing in my friend Marc's kitchen, talking with Marc
and Phil. Phil was describing a recent event in his own life, which neither
Marc nor I had witnessed. Phil described how he had opened up a long
shut cast iron stove in his house, only to be surprised by a bat which
suddenly flew out of it. As he told the story, we all three simultaneously
recoiled involuntarily as the bat "emerged." But what did that recoil
mean? For Phil, it might have been a memory of having actually recoiled
before the actual bat that had actually surprised him the night before.
But Marc and I had not been there to see that bat. We were recoiling
along with Phil, in Marc's kitchen, not in Phil's house. Without thinking
about what we were doing, we were also ducking to escape Phil's bat.
But, in an objective sense, there was no bat in Marc's kitchen. No. But
we were embodying an orientation to Phil's cast iron stove, there with
him as he opened the door. We had bodily occupied a position there,
beside him. We had taken up indeed we were infected by the
contagion of his orientation. Bodily, we were there with him, as the
bat flew out of his stove. We did not "leave" Marc's kitchen, any more
than we "leave" our seats as we become immersed in a movie or concert.
Rather, the proxemics of our embodied relations are simply not con-
fined by or reducible to impersonally defined space and time. Embodi-
ment is not comprehensible as a location in an objective coordinate

1 08 Embodiment as Ecstatic Intertwining

system. To be embodied is to be open, to be open onto others, and a
world, as the "whither" of our ecstasy.

The Transpersonal Body's Disclosure ofOne-ness

Embodied intimacy extends beyond that experienced with regard
to a single other in a dyadic relationship. The embodiment of intersub-
jectivity is not an objective relationship. That is to say, it is not a
relationship that discloses the other as an object. Hence, there are no
objective limits to its reach. This embodied openness extends a transper-
sonal reach as well.

My religion gave me a very concrete example of that. As a child, I
had a very dogmatic pre-Ecumenical Catholic school education. From
the nuns. And the Cathecism. Of course, like any thoughtful Catholic
adolescent, I rejected it when I was a teenager. But in retrospect, I now
see how much of that vision I treasure now that I can appreciate its
phenomenological significance. A special part of it is the notion of "the
Body of Christ." In that vision, "the Body of Christ" includes everyone.
It embodies all the souls, of the living and the dead, the saints and the
sinners, God, angels, humans, and devils. We are all embodied within
"the Body of Christ." And the Catholic Mass is a celebration of a
sacrament wherein Catholics ingest the living "body of Christ" in the
form of a host of bread. This bodily incorporation serves as an ex-
perience of co-memoration of our sacred life within "the Body of
Christ." There is something very sacramental about that experience of
embodiment.

The Ecological Body's Disclosure of the World

Ultimately, embodiment discloses the whole: life and nonlife.
Giambattista Vico, whose genealogy of meaning countered Descartes'
rationalism, hundreds of years ago foreshadowed this comprehension
of the body as ecologically disclosive. It was Vico's insight that primitive
people first conceived of the world with their bodies, that the indispen-
sible origins of human order are an embodied logic, that "they first think
the world and society as one giant body" (O'Neill, 1985, p. 28). Vico's
(1744/1970, p. 88) analysis of the body of the world, manifested in the
"mouth" of the river, the "shoulder" of the road, the "bowels" of the
earth, and so forth, illustrates well this ultimate openness of the body.
This disclosure of the body of the world is no mere anthropomorphic
arrogance. Rather, we discover that the ground of our embodied Being
is the earth (Levin, 1985, pp. 289-291). We discover that

Christopher M. Aanstoos 109

we are ontologically inseparable from the parabolic "body of na-
ture/' thus participating in its primordial rhythms by our very
embodiment. We are grounded in and of the earth, its rhythmic
periodicities, and the... fluctuations of a larger, more subtle Nature"
(Davis, 1986, p. 106; also cf. Kohak, 1984).

Distinguishable, certainly. But inseparable. Such a disclosure
departs decisively from modernity's metaphysic of Nature in terms of its
sciences of nature. Within their technological enframing, the earth is
disclosed as a vast storehouse of energy, a "standing reserve" (Heideg-
ger, 1953/1977) of raw materials to be carelessly and ruthlessly exploited
for human gratification (Kohak, 1984, p. 4). In contrast, the pre-scien-
tific disclosure of the body of the world opens us to the Being of all
beings. It engenders a radically deeper ecology through which we can
become "capable of grasping [our] moral place in the order of the
cosmos" (Kohak, 1984, p. 118). We may then fulfill Holderlin's vision
that "poetically man dwells on this earth" (cf. Heidegger, 1954/1971b).

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Sharing Secrets:
Where Education and Psychotherapy Meet

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards

The person who reads or listens to the hitherto concealed authentic
experience of another is enriched by it. To learn of another's
experience is to broaden and deepen the dimensions of one's own
experience. (Jourard, 1971, p. 61)

One can not become a person without first becoming an individual,
without freeing [oneself] from... domination, without becoming
aware of [one's] own individuality, which has a right to secrecy. But
if one remains at this stage, one remains an individual, rather than
a person. By opening out, by telling one's secrets but freely this
time one becomes personally linked with those to whom [one]
reveals them, and becomes fully a person thereby. (Tournier, 1965,
p. 29)

What helps... most in [a] search for the truths of life is to hear other
seekers speak of their actual experiences. (Tournier, 1965, p. 39)

Reflective of its humanistic/transpersonal orientation, the Psychol-
ogy Department at West Georgia College is committed to explorations
of what it means to be human. The subject matter of psychology is
approached in such a way as to facilitate self-awareness and self-under-
standing as well as understanding of others all of which are con-

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 1 13

sidered foundational to psychological self-development, both personal-
ly and professionally.

Sidney Jourard, a mentor, friend and/or colleague to many in our
Department, has explained that "considerable growth in self-under-
standing and understanding of others occurs through" participation in
groups in which persons are encouraged to reveal more of who they are
to other members of the group (Jourard, 1971, p. 66). It was Jourard's
(1971) conviction that persons could not come to know themselves
except as an outcome of disclosing themselves to other persons (p. 6),
although such disclosure required an audience believed to be of "good-
will" (p. 5) and "the guarantee that whatever is presented to the other
is disclosed in privacy" (p. 66). Jourard (1971) was well aware that we
typically "camouflage our true being before others to protect... against
criticism or rejection" (p. vii) and that disclosure is a difficult process
for most persons. He was convinced, however, that we pay a price for
our tendency to hide our true being in relation to others, including not
being truly known by others in our lives, being misunderstood, feeling
lonely, and/or losing touch with our real selves (pp. vii-viii).

Yet many persons feel the price paid for maintaining secrets about
self is well worth avoiding the potential for shame that exists if we reveal
ourselves to others. Bradshaw (1988) has described various facets of
shame healthy or constructive aspects as well as toxic or dysfunctional
aspects. The latter type of shame Bradshaw (1988) refers to as "the
shame that binds us," the type of shame that, "like internal bleeding,"
represents "a rupture of the self with the self," leaving a person with "a
sense of worthlessness, a sense of failing... as a human being" or being
somehow "flawed and defective as a human being" (p. 10).

This sort of shame leaves one understandably reluctant to express
self freely to others. In order to make progress toward transparency,
those working with persons who experience such shame must help them

overcome the fear of not being understood, a universal and ex-
tremely paralyzing fear of being judged... a fear of being laughed at
by the other who might misunderstand the value of an experience
or a feeling, or the gravity of some scruples. (Tournier, 1965, pp.
50-51)

Many of the classes in our department are designed to facilitate and
encourage self-disclosure and to establish conditions which make heal-
thy and appropriate self-disclosure possible. This is particularly the case
in one of our introductory psychology classes, entitled Personal
Relationships. The course description of this course in our college

1 14 Sharing Secrets

catalog reads as follows: "Experiential exploration through personal
interactions. Designed to encourage the development of sensitivity to
feelings, attitudes, and beliefs of one's self and others."

This class has been a popular one among our undergraduates and
has served an important function in the growth and development of the
thousands of students who have taken it since it was first added to the
curriculum in the late 1960's. Students in this class get individual and
personal attention from faculty. Many report that this is the only class
in which they actually get to know the names of their fellow students
and are encouraged to build meaningful relationships with them. Many
students develop friendships in this class that sustain them in difficult
times and contribute positively to their satisfaction with college life. The
course has given many students the support they needed to stay in
school, to communicate more effectively and assertively in their inter-
personal relationships, to handle personal conflicts which may intrude
into their lives as students, and to become more self-confident, self-
directed and empathic human beings.

An exercise, known as the SECRETS exercise, is conducted in
some sections of this class. This exercise exemplifies the approach taken
in many of our classes as well as the impact of such an approach on
students and faculty in our department. Because it has been quite some
time since we first used the SECRETS exercise, it is no longer perfectly
clear where or how the idea originated. Self-disclosure has always been
an integral part of our Personal Relationships courses, and from the
first day of class we invite students to share their experiences in relation-
ships of various kinds with friends, roommates, romantic partners,
family members, teachers, business associates, employers, etc.

Many students come to this predominantly Freshman class unac-
customed to disclosing anything but the most basic demographic type
of information about themselves. There have been countless times we
have gone through discussions focusing on problems students have in
relationships with other persons when the question emerged: "What is
the worst thing that could happen if you told so and so how you felt?"
Attention has often turned to the issue of why people choose to keep
particular information about themselves and their feelings a secret.

One day in a class taught by the first author of this paper, it seemed
an almost natural progression to ask: "What is it that you would least
want others to know about you?" Class members looked at each other
and giggled nervously when he first proposed the idea of sharing our
"deepest, darkest secrets." However, they agreed to try the exercise,
albeit reluctantly in some cases.

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 1 15

The procedure used in this exercise today is basically the same as
when it was first proposed as an experiment, although the written
statement which is distributed as a part of it has undergone some
revision. (See Table 1 on the following page for a copy of this written
statement.) Discussion of the exercise takes place in a class meeting
prior to the day on which the secrets are shared. During this preceding
meeting, the rationale for the exercise (as indicated above) is discussed.
Students are told that they do not have to describe a secret if they don't
want to.

Before students leave this preparatory meeting, they are given a
copy of a written statement which summarizes the SECRETS exercise
and an envelope. They are asked to write out a secret on the back of the
written statement which summarizes the exercise. It is suggested to them
that when they sit down to write out their secrets they find a place where
they can be alone, a place where they will feel the least inhibited about
writing their secrets. They are then asked to place their written secrets
in the envelope provided. These envelopes are collected at the begin-
ning of the class period set aside for the SECRETS exercise.

Several authors have raised concerns about the risks inherent in
self-disclosure of this sort, including the potential for "violating the
boundaries that protect the self and human relationships" (Bok, 1983,
p. 88), for "undue and premature tampering" with someone's inner
world of experience (Kempler, 1987, p. 116), for creating a form of
"pseudointimacy" (Weiss, 1987, p. 123) and for encouraging "maladap-
tive self-disclosure" (Yalom, 1970, pp. 272-274). In this regard, Bok's
(1983) point is a good one that "experience with secrecy tests human
relationships as little else does" (p. 44). She also helps us understand
how

Learning to handle secrecy with discretion blends with and reflects
moral development. In each, one must come to see oneself and
others as capable of moral choice and as owed respect. And at the
root of each lies the capacity for sifting apart and for discernment
that is indispensable for all thinking, all choice. (Bok, 1983, p. 44)

The authors want to express their appreciation to Trish Lane for her contributions
to the revision of this statement. These contributions led to the development of a
statement which acknowledged the painful nature of some of the information people
hide from others and the importance of being mindful of the vulnerability of those
who share secrets as participants in this exercise.

1 16 Sharing Secrets

Table 1

PSY 103: PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

SECRETS

You are going to be asked to do something which may be
difficult, but also can be extremely releasing and rewarding.
Everyone has information about themselves which they hide from
others, secrets.

Secrets are thoughts, feelings, or actions, real or imagined, that
you may be ashamed of, things which you have done or things that
have been done to you which still cause you pain.

The purpose of this exercise is to provide an opportunity for
you to share your secret. This may be difficult. To make it easier,
this exercise is anonymous. Your NAME is NOT to be put on this
piece of paper. Your secret will be read aloud and then promptly
torn up. I will read the secrets via flashlight in a darkened room so
that no one's expressions maybe seen. No one will know who belongs
to which secret. Take the chance and see what happens. Discover
what your reactions will be upon hearing your secret read aloud. Be
aware of your thoughts and feelings throughout this exercise. Please
be considerate of others' secrets as they are being read aloud. Afford
them the same consideration you would wish to have as you expose
a very vulnerable part of yourself.

Following the reading of the secrets, the lights will come on and
there will be an opportunity for discussion. In the past, some stu-
dents have chosen to tell the class which secret was theirs and to talk
further about their experience. No one will be asked to do so, but
this is an option.

If this exercise is too difficult for you, you do not have to
participate. If it evokes painful and disturbing feelings, you are
encouraged to explore the meaning of your response to this exercise
with someone who can help you do so. One possibility for help is the
Student Development Center which provides free and confidential
counseling to students on this campus. All you would need to do is
call there to make an appointment.

On the other side of this paper, please write your secret in as
much detail as is needed to describe the secret to us so we will
understand what happened or is happening and what you think and
feel about the situation being described.

Thanks.

* If you choose to participate in this exercise, fold this sheet
and put it in the envelope provided (after writing about your secret
on the back). If you choose not to participate in this exercise, do not
put a blank sheet of paper in the envelope provided. Simply keep
the envelope and sheet of paper.

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 117

It should be understood that the SECRETS exercise takes place in
the broader context of the Personal Relationships class and that instruc-
tors utilizing this exercise and teaching this class have a background of
coursework and training that prepares them to facilitate such self-dis-
closure. In particular, they are aware of the ways in which appropriate
self-disclosure can beget self-disclosure (Jourard, 1967, 1968, 1971) and
the importance of creating a classroom climate which is inviting rather
than dispiriting to students (Jourard, 1971, pp. 87-88), challenging but
not threatening to them (Combs, Richards & Richards, 1988, pp. 246-
247, 295).

We recognize with Touraier (1965) that to "tell a secret is to give
one's self... over [one's] natural resistance to open [one's] heart" (p. 34),
"to receive a secret constitutes then an enormous responsibility," and
that damaging or destructive consequences which may be associated
with the sharing of secrets persons consider shameful in one way or
another should be avoided (p. 36). In response to this recognition,
various efforts are made to insure that the atmosphere in which these
secrets are expressed is a protected, safe one.

Students always have the option of not participating in this exercise
or any other exercise of this sort. Some students choose not to par-
ticipate. Instructors recognize that some students may be shocked,
stunned, or threatened by particular material disclosed in such an
exercise. Students are thus told that these reactions may occur and that
they will have an opportunity to share and explore their responses
following the reading of all the secrets. In order to provide sufficient
time for the reading and discussion of secrets, a class period of 90-120
minutes is recommended.

Because students and faculty interacting in a college classroom are
not bound by the same standards of confidentiality applicable in a
professional therapeutic relationship, particular steps are taken to in-
sure the anonymity of participants in this exercise. On the day of the
exercise, when the secrets are collected, if a small number of persons
turns in secrets and the instructor believes the anonymity of those
handing in secrets would be compromised, the exercise is postponed
until additional secrets are turned in. After secrets have been collected
from approximately half of those enrolled in the class, the doors and
windows are covered with paper or shutters and the lights in the
classroom are turned off. This provides for the privacy of individuals
whose secrets are being read. Many students blush deeply when they
hear their secrets being read, or give other signs of discomfort or anxiety.
If participants in this exercise could readily see others' expressions, this

118 Sharing Secrets

could be a means of persons losing their anonymity. The secrets are read
with a flashlight by the instructor.

After reading each individual secret, the instructor makes a com-
ment about the secret. These comments are supportive in nature and
often attempt to place the secret within a developmental context. For
example, if persons feel guilty about things they might have said in anger
as children to a family member prior to his/her accidental or unan-
ticipated death, the thinking patterns characteristic of young children
might be discussed. Post-secret comments attempt to alleviate the
shame and guilt which often accompany the secret. Especially in the
case of reports of child abuse or sexual abuse, where victims often feel
somehow responsible or to blame for what has happened to them,
instructors attempt to instill the idea that students are neither at fault
nor responsible for the abuse.

Often in their post-secret remarks, instructors seek to communi-
cate the perspective Branden (1990) has articulated, that

When we learn to forgive the child we once were for what he or she
didn't know, or couldn't do, or couldn't cope with, or felt or didn't
feel; when we understand and accept that that child was struggling
to survive the best way he or she could then the adult-self is no
longer in an adversarial relationship to the child-self. One part is
not at war with another part." (p. 243)

Responding to these secrets is not an easy task. Students do not
always explain fully what they think and feel about the secrets they
describe and given situations could hold a myriad of meanings for
different individuals. It is also not always possible to determine whether
a particular secret has been shared by a male or a female student. As a
result, it is important that instructors commenting on secrets have some
appreciation of the limits of their capacity to empathize with the persons
snaring secrets in this exercise, and it is helpful to acknowledge these
limits to the group. Instructors frequently mention that there are free
counseling services available on campus for anyone still bothered by or
even simply curious about exploring his/her secret. Individual
counselors' names are often mentioned at this point.

Each secret is torn up into many small pieces once it is read, and
thrown into a trash can. After all the secrets are read, a few moments
are given for the students to compose themselves, and then the lights
are turned on.

To this day, almost ten years since that first SECRETS exercise was
conducted, the same period of "heavy" silence follows the reading of

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 1 19

the secrets. The atmosphere is almost palpable. The air feels warm,
heavy and somewhat electric. The phrase "you could cut the tension
with a knife" seems a quite appropriate description.

Students are typically stunned by reported cases of sexual molesta-
tion, rape, abortions, varied sexual preferences, violence and other
associated illegal activities including attempted murder or
manslaughter, car theft and/or sale of large quantities of drugs. At-
tempts at initiating discussion at first seem fruitless, as if students can't
respond until they have somehow taken in or "made sense" of a nearly
overwhelming barrage of unanticipated information.

Most are shocked by the discrepancy between the fellow classmates
they thought they knew, and the picture of these same classmates which
emerges from the SECRETS exercise. They become aware of the many
sides of persons that had previously remained hidden to them, as they
put in new perspective the sides of themselves they had previously kept
hidden from others.

As they seek to process these new perspectives, at first students
seem most comfortable talking about their reaction to the exercise in a
general way. Questions such as "What do you think about what you've
just heard?" or "How do you feel about the secrets you have just heard
read out in class?" seem to work well to initiate discussion at this point.

Slowly, as students recognize they are not alone in their feelings of
shock, and as they integrate the fact that they themselves have inten-
tionally kept secrets from others as others have kept secrets from them,
they will respond to such promptings as "Are there any thoughts or
related experiences you would like to share with some of the persons
who have particular secrets?" "What did you experience when hearing
your secret read to the group?" "How do you now feel about your
secret?" Quite often, during this phase of the discussion, supportive
comments are made by students to anonymous students who have
obviously suffered as a result of the events depicted in some secrets.
These types of comments are encouraged and reinforced.

After a more general discussion, in some classes students have been
given an opportunity to identity which secret they wrote. There is usually
a long pause before anyone does this. Once the first student does so,
others often follow. Through nervous voices and with choked-back
tears, many stories come out. Almost immediately when this occurs, the
atmosphere changes. Students who moments before may have been
very solemn and quiet, become active and interested in learning more
about the disclosers' secrets. Their questions generally lead disclosers
to feel as if others care about them. As these stories are elaborated upon,

120 Sharing Secrets

additional students often choose to disclose further personal informa-
tion about themselves. In one class, thirteen of twenty-two students
identified their secrets in turn.

In his book on the Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy ,
Yalom (1970) describes an exercise first suggested to him by Gerald
Goodman, which Yalom used with members of T-groups to
demonstrate certain "common denominators" in the human condition
(p. 10). In this exercise, he asked group members (mainly medical
professionals and Peace Corps volunteers) "to write, anonymously, on
a slip of paper their top secret the one thing they would be most
disinclined to share with the group" (p. 10). Once generated, such
anonymous secrets could be collected and redistributed to group mem-
bers, "each one receiving another's secret. Each member is then asked
to read the secret aloud and to reveal how he would feel if he had such
a secret." (Yalom, 1970, p. 11).

According to Yalom (1970), the content of these secrets proved
"to be startlingly similar with a couple of major themes predominating"
(p. 11). He summarized these themes as "a deep conviction of basic
inadequacy... a deep sense of interpersonal alienation... some variety of
sexual secret" (Yalom, 1970, p. 11).

Using a similar format, Norton, Feldman and Tafoya (1974)
generated 359 secrets for purposes of introducing "a more extensive
thematic analysis for secrets" than Yalom had offered, and looking at
"the parameters of risk associated with various self-disclosures" (p.
450).

Subjects in this study were "359 undergraduates in 20 different
interpersonal and group communication classes in the Communication
Arts department at the University of Wisconsin" (p. 450) who were
informed that "they did not have to disclose a secret if they did not want
to. Standardized slips of paper were used. After the exercise, all secrets
were collected" (p. 451).

As a result of this study, Norton, Feldman and Tafoya (1974) came
up with a 17-category content analysis system. The categories which
were so identified were:

1. Sex. In addition to secrets concerning the sexual act, this category

included, but was not limited to, secrets describing homosexual
behavior, sexual perversion, erotic fantasy, self-manipulation,
abortion, and illegitimacy.

2. Violence or destruction. Secrets that indicated beating, killing, or

any type of destruction directed toward a person or property were
placed in this category.

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 121

3. Mental health. These secrets directly indicated a psychosomatic

problem which if left unchecked could lead to serious incapacita-
tion. Secrets in this category usually reflected an inability to cope.

4. Masking. Secret reflected a discrepancy between the private self

and the public self. The person admitted that his behavior
operated on at least two levels usually, private versus public.

5. Failure. This category entailed economic, physical, social, spiritual,

intellectual, and status failures. It may relate to the person's
self-image, his image of others, or others' image of him.

6. Stealing. The person admitted that he has committed an act of
stealing, usually for economic gain.

7. Loneliness. Secrets reporting a sense of loneliness, solitude, isola-

tion, or friendlessness were placed under this heading.

8. Defective relationships. The person reported some kind of barrier,

either real or imagined, which hindered, denied, or distorted
interpersonal communication.

9. Cheating. This category is a counterpart of the stealing category.
Secrets in which the person admitted theft or plagiarism of
another's work, idea, or reputation were included in this category.
Instead of economic gain per se, the person cheated to avoid
expenditure of work, time, or energy.

10. Alcohol. These secrets reflected the use, misuse, or abstinence
of alcohol.

11. Drugs. A secret which suggested that any drug was a source of a
problem belonged in this category.

12. Phobia. Any secret which reported an irrational or persistent fear
was placed in this category.

13. Physical health. Secrets reporting physical defects or health
problems were placed in this category.

14. Ego vanity. These secrets indicated a person's love or affection
for himself, a high degree of self-centeredness, or an offensive
conceit.

15. Goals and plans. If the secret revealed a fantasized goal [non-
sexual] or a future desire, including seemingly unattainable or
exaggerated goals, it was placed in this category.

16. Habits. These secrets suggested a recurring pattern of behavior
that the individual would like to break or that society would tend
to frown upon.

1 22 Sharing Secrets

17. Nonsecrets. Secrets too broad, obviously absurd, or highly positive
were placed in this category. Also, the report of "no secret"
belonged in this category. (Norton, Feldman & Tafoya, 1974, p.
451)

No examples were provided by these authors as to what might
constitute secrets "too broad, obviously absurd or highly positive" (Nor-
ton, Feldman & Tafoya, 1971, p. 451).

Although the work of Yalom (1970) and Norton, Feldman and
Tafoya (1974) was not known to these authors until a literature search
was carried out for the purpose of writing this article, there are many
parallels between the content of secrets discovered by the above-men-
tioned researchers, and the content of secrets revealed in our under-
graduate classes.

Among the secrets revealed by such an exercise, it is customary to
find content related to problems associated with living with alcoholic
parents or partners, stealing, sexual abuse or molestation, activities
participated in when under the influence of alcohol or drugs, sexual
preferences, cheating (in academic settings and behind the backs of a
"steady" dating partner or a spouse), lying and suicidal ideation.

Among the secrets which have been most surprising and/or
memorable in the course of these exercises have been reports that a
student was a member of an organized car theft ring, that a student had
successfully completed a drug rehab program, that a student had an
abortion which led to wounding psychological suffering, that a student
had witnessed a satanic-cult-related murder, that a student had had an
affair with a minister at her church, that a person who had Herpes
intentionally withheld this information from various sexual partners,
that a student had a brother in the Mafia, that a student had had a
sexually-transmitted disease about five months without knowing it, that
a student had helped friends vandalize the home of a person who had
wronged a friend, that a person had cheated on his girlfriend by having
sexual relations with two of her sorority sisters.

The question is often raised, and rightfully so, as to whether stu-
dents "make up" secrets. This is certainly a possibility which has to be
considered. Other interactions taking place in class and the experiences
shared in other exercises and assignments related to this course suggest
that if this does occur, it does so infrequently.

Even if persons do make secrets up, however, it is interesting to see
what type of information they would consider damaging or of a "worst-
case-scenario" variety. On those occasions when we believe we may be
dealing with a "created" as opposed to a "real" secret, we honestly state:

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 123

"This is kind of hard to believe, but if it is true..." and then proceed with
the post-secret commentary as if the secret were true. As has been found
time and again in the literature regarding the revelation of secrets
related to sexual abuse (Bear with Dimmock, 1988; Schaefer, 1984),
when a person who has been victimized in some way finally develops the
courage to share this secret with another, one only feels doubly vic-
timized if the person with whom the secret is shared does not believe
the secret revealed.

Instructors conducting this exercise are respectful of the courage
students must build in order to share these secrets with others, even
when they do so anonymously. Instructors thus make a point to express
their appreciation for the openness, trust, and support conveyed in the
post-secrets discussions. On the day after the SECRETS exercise, the
first few minutes of class are devoted to any comments or reflections
students have regarding this exercise.

Impact of This Exercise on Students and Instructors

"As Alice Miller has... written, 'It is not the traumas we suffer...
which make us emotionally ill but the inability to express the trauma'"
(cited in Bradshaw, 1990, p. 228). Further, as one of our former students
has put it:

If you've ever told someone a secret and felt relieved to have your
words and feelings met with understanding, then you know the
healing that comes from sharing your inner self in positive relation-
ships. The forgiveness, the knowledge that you're not alone, the
awareness that your life does make sense all these do much to
heal the past. (Hazelton, 1990, p. 199)

Students participating in the SECRETS exercise report a "weight"
being "lifted" off of them, even if they simply hear their secret read
aloud. The shame and guilt that they have been carrying with them is
seemingly relieved, as if a form of confession had taken place. Those
who identity their secrets invariably receive support and well-inten-
tioned advice from other class members. Many have said that when they
hear their secrets read, understand ways in which they may have been
carrying shame about this secret needlessly, and then see the secret torn
up into small pieces, it's as though they have finally been able to put this
behind them and get on with their lives.

The secrets exercise does a lot toward building group cohesiveness.
The openness of students is a reflection of the trust they sense in the
class and its process. In addition, this exercise "opens doors" for further

124 Sharing Secrets

self-disclosure as the class progresses through the quarter. Much of
self -disclosure in post-secrets classes seems to reflect an increased sense
of trust in the class. Students come to realize that they are in many ways
more similar to each other than they are different. The exercise con-
stitutes what Yalom (1970) has referred to as a "welcome to the human
race" experience where students discover that "We're all in the same
boat" at a fundamental level (p. 66). Students report feeling less "alone"
after this exercise.

As instructors, we have also benefitted from participation in this
exercise. Immediately after the secrets are read we often feel somewhat
saddened and overwhelmed. There are usually several, if not many,
secrets which describe the pain and suffering of the persons holding
them, or "the many faces of shame," as Bradshaw (1988, p. 3) has put
it. At times we get the impression that the average student is so en-
tangled in difficulties and crises that it seems beyond his/her capacities
to cope. On occasion we feel helpless to do anything to make a real
difference or to relieve suffering of this magnitude.

Just as frequently, however, we find ourselves able to bring some
light into the darkness, to relieve the burden of some unnecessary
suffering, and we leave the room feeling uplifted. It is especially en-
couraging to hear students make comments which evidence caring and
concern for fellow classmates who are suffering. As they offer solace or
comfort to troubled students, and do so as insightfully and therapeuti-
cally as many trained professionals might, we recognize that there is
hope for those in our classroom, and for others in the larger society
who carry the burden of their own secrets.

Using this exercise in our teaching, we have come to appreciate
Jourard's (1971) statement that persons who believe themselves to be
in relationship with others may be more "strangers one to the other"
than they realize, and more of a mystery for one another than is
constructive for healthy functioning (p. 6). We have come to understand
how self-disclosure between persons "reduces the mystery" one in-
dividual " is for another" (Jourard, 1971, p. 6). We have become more
aware of the impact such self-disclosures have on our own development
and on the development of others.

As we have become aware of some of the realities of human
existence reflected in the SECRETS exercise, we have come to under-
stand how difficult it is to effectively direct the course of one's destiny,
or to engage in authentic dialogue with another when misconceptions,
unwarranted assumptions or secrets stand in the way. We have become
more comfortable disclosing some of our own conflicts and struggles to

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 125

persons with whom we interact (both students and non-students) and
inviting them to dialogue with us in more authentic and meaningful ways
about their experiences.

Given the broader perspective of the human condition which
emerges for us through this exercise, we have come to be able to deal
more effectively with painful memories of our own. We have seen our
interactions as a class as the coming together of "fortunate strangers"
(Beukenkamp, 1958). We have come to realize that what has happened
in the classroom is a microcosm of life itself. People struggle, people
hurt, people are unhappy. But people also find help from others to
regain needed strength to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on.

Where Education and Psychotherapy Meet

The literature on the sharing of secrets makes frequent references
to the psychotherapeutic context a context in which secrets are
frequently shared. As Tournier (1965) has stated it, "to tell your secrets,
to experience thus the human communion we all need... there you have
the essence of psychotherapy, of every school" (p. 40).

In discussing the process of therapeutic change in the context of

group therapy, Yalom (1985) summarizes eleven primary "therapeutic

factors" which he considers fundamental to this process":

1. Instillation of Hope a perception that improvement in one's

situation, change, or the possibility of being understood by others may

be achieved.

2. Universality a perception that one is similar to other human beings
in one's struggles and one's concerns.

3. Imparting of Information a presentation of didactic information
or advice.

4. Altruism an offering of support, reassurances, suggestions.

5. The Corrective Recapitulation of the Primary Family Group a
challenging exploration and re-examination of fixed roles and ground
rules for interpersonal interaction.

6. Development of Socializing Techniques the development of basic
social skills.

7. Imitative Behavior a situation in which group members serve as
models for one another, demonstrating behaviors that might be "tried
on" by others.

8. Interpersonal Learning an experience borne of opportunities for
feedback from others and self-observation.

126 Sharing Secrets

9. Group Cohesiveness a sense of relatedness or connection to others
in the group.

10. Catharsis a ventilation or expression of feelings.

11. Existential Factors a recognition of the "capriciousness of our
existence" and the importance of taking "ultimate responsibility" in
living one's life.

As can be seen from the preceding discussion, most of these factors
are reflected in student and faculty responses to the SECRETS exercise.
In the course of his clinical work, Yalom (1985) has "made it a practice
to interview patients after they have completed group therapy," seeking
to learn more about "some single critical incident, some turning point
or the most helpful single event in therapy" (p. 26). In discussing
"common characteristics of these critical incidents," Yalom (1985)
mentioned that group members often report an incident "that is highly
laden emotionally" and yet one in which a "feared catastrophe did not
occur" (i.e., "the roof did not collapse"; "neither derision, rejection...
nor the destruction of others" occurred) (p. 27).

The SECRETS exercise is easily one of the most emotion-laden
and remembered of the many activities carried out in the Personal
Relationships classes, When students return to campus, even years after
graduation, they often ask whether this exercise is still being done, and
are pleased to know that it is.

While Jones (1968) emphasizes the differences between
psychotherapy and education (although he sees ways in which profes-
sionals in both areas overlap in their focus and concerns), our students'
experiences and our own experiences indicate that at its best, education
interfaces with psychotherapy and the two become complementary
aspects of learning experiences described as some of the most
memorable of students' college careers. As Combs and Avila (1985)
point out, the discovery of personal meaning is one of the underlying
principles of helping relationships, whether one is a teacher, therapist,
minister, administrator, nurse, etc.

The SECRETS exercise leads to changes in how students and
faculty view themselves and others. It also leads to changes in how they
understand themselves and others. Surely it is fruitless to debate
whether these changes are "really" therapeutic or "really" educational.
Perhaps the term "growth" best describes what is occurring. Perhaps a
new term such as edu-peutic or thera-cational needs to be coined. We
leave such speculation to those who are so inclined. Of one matter there
seems little doubt. The SECRETS exercise, in particular, and the
approach we use in many of our courses, enables students to articulate

Donald C. Medeiros and Anne C. Richards 127

and share significant aspects of their experience, building a foundation
for being able to better direct the course of their lives.

References

Bear, E. with Dimmock, P. T. (1988). Adults molested as children: A survivor's

manual for women and men. Orwell, VT: Safer Society Press.
Beukenkamp, C, Jr. (1958). Fortunate strangers. An experience in group

psychotherapy. New York: Grove Press.
Bok, S. (1983). Secrets. New York: Vintage Books.
Bradshaw, J. (1988). Healing the shame that binds you. Deerfield Beach, FL:

Health Communications.
Bradshaw, J. (1990). Liberating your lost inner child. In J. Abrams (Ed.),

Reclaiming your inner child (p. 224-233). Los Angles: Tarcher.
Branden, N. (1990). Integrating the younger self. In J. Abrams (JEd.)tReclaiming

your inner child (pp. 242-247). Los Angeles: Tarcher.
Combs, A. W. & Avila, D. L. (1985). Helping relationships. Boston: Allyn &

Bacon.
Combs, A. W., Richards, A. C, & Richards, F. (1988). Perceptual psychology:

A humanistic approach to the study of persons. Lanham, MD: University

Press of America.
Hazelton, D. (1990). The courage to see (M. Miller, Ed.). Deerfield Beach, FL:

Health Communications.
Jones, R. M. (1968). Fantasy and feeling in education. New York: Harper &

Row.
Jourard, S. M. (1967). To be or not to be... transparent. In S. M. Jourard (Ed.),

To be or not to be... existential-psychological perspectives on the self (pp.

27-36). Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Jourard, S. M. (1968). Disclosing man to himself. New York: Van Nostrand

Reinhold.
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Reinhold.
Kempler, B. (1987). The shadow side of self-disclosure. Journal of Humanistic

Psychology, 27, 109-117.
Norton, R., Feldman, C, & Tafoya, D. (1974). Risk parameters across types of

secrets. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 21, 450-454.
Schaefer, C. E. (1984). How to talk to children about really important things. New

York: Harper & Row.
Tournier, P. (1965). Secrets (J. Embry, Trans.). Atlanta: John Knox Press.
Weiss, A. G. (1987). Privacy and intimacy: Apart and a part. Journal of

Humanistic Psychology, 27, 118-125.
Yalom, I. D. (1970). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy. New York:

Basic Books.
Yalom, I. D. (1985). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy (3rd ed).

New York: Basic Books.

Visionary Experience:
A Preliminary Typology

Raymond Moody

Visions are among the most extraordinary phenomena of the
human mind, yet today are seldom studied by psychologists. At first, this
seems paradoxical, but it becomes more understandable in light of
several facts.

First, most of us grow up in an atmosphere charged by tales of
visions which occurred in Biblical times. We learn about Ezekiel's
sighting of a "wheel within a wheel," about Jacob's Ladder, about
Revelation. Attitudes shaped by this context of presentation often
preconceive of visionaries as extraordinarily gifted individuals as
having some mysterious talent or gift, perhaps even the ability to peer
into supernatural realms or to commune with God directly. This sort of
view seems to assume that the capacity to have visions is extremely rare,
that most of us lack it.

Secondly, visions are presumed to be difficult to study in a sys-
tematic way, due to the fact that for the most part they are spontaneous
phenomena. They seem to come on people without warning, as it were.
So, since we can't tell when a particular person is going to have a vision,
we are unlikely to be on hand to study it.

Thirdly, today many people tend topathologize visions to assume
that visionaries are schizophrenic, delirious or perhaps even

Raymond Moody 129

sociopathic. On this view, there is no real distinction between a vision
and a hallucination.

Fourthly, many people tend to see visions as an antique
phenomenon which is totally without relevance in the modern world.
Science and other modern methodologies for acquiring knowledge,
these people believe, has made such hoary modes of knowing obsolete.

However, careful consideration of such attitudes clearly show them
to be lacking. To begin with the claim that they are obsolete: in fact,
numerous individuals who have made major contributions to human
knowledge or to art have recognized the role of visionary experiences
in their creative process. Kekule's insight that the carbon atoms in the
molecular structure of benzene are arranged in a ring came to him in a
dream-like state as he sat before a fire and watched visionary snakes
curl around and bite their own tails. Rene Descartes (1641/1960) made
major contributions toward formulating the scientific method as a result
of a spiritual experience involving several "waking dreams." Sir Arnold
Toynbee was inspired to write his monumental^ Study of History (1947)
by a series of visions in which he seemed to drop into "a pocket in time"
during a trip to Greece when he was twenty-three years old. Thomas
Edison, Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson were among the
many creative individuals who sought inspiration in the "state between
sleeping and waking."

Such incidents raise serious questions about the notion that visions
are pathological phenomena. "Hallucination" is far too broad a term to
characterize the various kinds of experiences which have been called
"visions." In discussing visions, one needs to consider not only the
phenomenology of the experience itself but also its social, cultural,
spiritual, artistic, and even at times its political dimensions. In so far as
a vision is a hallucination, it is a "hallucination in context," and we are
unable to unravel its meaning until we understand that context.

As to the beliefs that the visionary capacity is very rare and that
visions are not susceptible to being studied systematically under con-
trolled circumstances, I want to suggest that both beliefs are
demonstrably false. In this paper, I will argue that in fact two forms of
human experience which have manifested in the past as "visions" are in
fact widely distributed in the population, and that this fact makes
possible the systematic study of visions.

The modes of experience to which I am referring are, first, hyp-
nogogic states, the type of awareness which we experience "between
waking and sleeping," and, secondly, pareidolia, the type of visual
illusion which we experience when "seeing faces in clouds." In what

130 Visionary Experience

follows, I want to illustrate how each can account for certain categories
of naturally occurring visionary phenomena. After that, I will conclude
by suggesting other well-known modes of human experience which may
help understand historically important visions.

Hypnogogic States and Visions

Although estimates of the percentage of normal individuals who
experience hypnogogic imagery during the onset of sleep vary widely, it
is generally accepted that this is fairly common. The reported imagery
is often brightly colored and may involve surrealistic distortions or
humorous, even cartoon-like sequences. Commonly reported images
include faces of persons known or unknown, beautiful, majestic scenery
or "mini-dramas" (brief sequences of action involving one or more
persons).

Persons reporting such experiences typically describe them as oc-
curring "in the mind," that is, without definable external spatial location,
but there is no question that they can be "projected" into the visual field
and become, in effect, eidetic images. They are clearly associated with
creativity, and both Thomas Edison and Robert Louis Stevenson
(among others) developed techniques for maintaining awareness in the
hypnogogic state so as to enhance their creative output

Hypnogogic states seem plainly to have been part of the basis for
numerous forms of visionary experience in the past. Supplicants at the
"temples of Asklepios" in ancient Greece, for example, apparently were
in the hypnogogic state as they underwent their visionary experience.
In this procedure, which is called "dream incubation," pilgrims jour-
neyed to the temple in order to be healed of what we might today call
a psychosomatic ailment, or even a neurotic conflict or "problem in
living." They slept in the temple and were guided to have an experience
during which their problems were resolved. Surviving descriptions of
this treatment by supplicants sometimes specifically state that they had
their visions "in the state between sleeping and waking."

There is historical evidence that hypnogogic states can occur in the
form of collective outbreaks. In 150 AD in Miletus, many citizens
reported "sightings of the gods," and once again these accounts
frequently mention the hypnogogic state. I believe that the recent wave
of reports by apparently sane individuals who claim that they were
abducted by occupants of "UFO's" and given physical examinations
bear many of the earmarks of hypnogogic experience.

Raymond Moody 131

Projected hypnogogic experiences can easily be studied by the
simple and time-honored technique of "crystal gazing" (Moody, 1990).
It has been known for thousands of years that many individuals will have
vivid visions when gazing into the clear depth provided by some such
speculum as a mirror, crystal, or even a bowl of water. Although this
practice has fallen into disrepute because of its association with "fortune
telling," there can be no doubt that the core phenomenon is real.

This technique may well have value in providing for the experimen-
tal study of the creative process. George Sand was among the many
creative individuals who made use of this procedure. As a child, she was
captivated by the visions she saw unfolding before her in a polished
screen in her parents' home.

Pareidolia and Visions

"Seeing faces in clouds" is a form of illusion; that is, there is an
actual external stimulus present, to which the mind adds an interpreta-
tion. However, unlike many illusions, those of pareidolia seem to persist
even when we pay close attention to them.

Pareidolia seems to be part of the basis of a kind of collective
visionary experience which even today is frequently reported in the
popular press. Hence, when Jesus is reported to be seen by hundreds of
people on the side of an oil tank in the Midwest, or in a towering kudzu
vine in West Virginia, or on a formica top table in a small village in Texas
(all actual recent happenings), we can be sure that pareidolia is involved.

Such events provide a naturally occurring laboratory for the study
of the human urge to seek the transcendent. On-site investigation by
social scientists during the episodes may well help us better to under-
stand collective visionary experiences reported in historical times.

Pareidolia, like hypnogogic states, may also help to understand
creative activity. It is said that Leonardo da Vinci took his students on
cloud gazing outings in order to enhance their abilities to see as artists.

The Visionary Capacity
in Relation to other Modes of Experience

There are numerous other known phenomena which may well help
us more clearly to understand the famous and influential visionaries of
the past. Individuals afflicted with migraine often experience curious
visual phenomena such as lights, sparkles, squiggles and zig zag lines. It
has been suggested that these were in part the basis of the visions of

132 Visionary Experience

Hildegaard of Bingen, as revealed in the fascinating art works which she
has left us.

Temporal lobe or partial complex epilepsy involves many extraor-
dinary altered states of consciousness which may well be experienced as
spiritual enlightenment by persons having them. Some believe that such
luminaries as St. Paul and Mohammed suffered from such episodes.

Lucid dreams a form of experience in someone is asleep and
dreaming is nonetheless aware that this is so may well have been the
basis of some historical visions. It is plain from Descartes' (1641/1960)
description of the experience in which he "received" his famous
methodology that he experienced three separate lucid dreams during
that fabled evening.

Finally, delirium an acute organic mental syndrome which invol-
ves wandering attention and disorientation is typically associated
with vivid, often surrealistic, visual hallucinations. Delirium may be
precipitated by a wide range of conditions including drugs, organ failure
(of the heart or lungs, for example), fever or even sensory deprivation.
Analysis of visionary experiences of historical importance could well
yield clues (in certain instances at least) that delirium may have been
involved. It is well known, for example, that psychoactive substances,
social isolation and sensory deprivation, and fasting have all been used
by persons on "vision quests" to facilitate such experiences.

In no case, however, is an allusion to any such phenomenon as the
hypnogogic state, pareidolia, migraine, delirium, etc. sufficient in itself
to account for visionary experience. In each case, one must also try to
understand the social and cultural context of the experience, the per-
sonal and psychological history of the particular individual, and the
outcome that is, the way in which the individual having the experience
put it to use for himselfyherself and/or others. We also must consider
the effect the experience had upon his/her life and that of others, and
whether the person developed in such a way as to become a better and
more fulfilled person. Finally, in certain cases The Book of Revelation
in The Bible, for example we must also consider the form of literary
expression into which the experience was finally cast.

Visions are by no means an extinct phenomenon. They continue to
emerge often in new forms and continue to exert powerful
influence on the lives of human beings. They are not susceptible to
simple reductive analysis into pathological phenomena but require
subtle consideration of numerous interacting factors. Close attention to
the nature of these fascinating phenomena may well add to our under-
standing of historically important personages, events, and institutions.

Raymond Moody 133

It also may well yield practical techniques for enhancing creativity and
facilitating self-understanding.

References

Descartes, R. (1960). Meditations on first philosophy (L. J. LaFleur, Trans.).

New York: Library of Liberal Arts. (Original work published 1641)
Moody, R. A. (1990). Scrying. Theta, 16, 3-4.
Toynbee, A. J. (1947). A study of history. Oxford, England: Oxford University

Press.

Malignant Currency: The Psychosocial

Aftershocks of the Exxon Valdez Oil

Hemorrhage in the Lived World of Seward

Richard Alapack

The Gulf of Alaska was poisoned on Good Friday, March 24, 1989
(Meganack, 1989). Shortly after midnight, the $125 million Exxon Val-
dez tanker rammed into Bligh Reef and oozed 10.8 million gallons of
crude oil into the Prince William Sound. In the wake of this manmade
disaster, life in Alaska capsized. Sea-death always ripples to the land and
in the souls of the people. Damage assessment studies since 1989 have
ignored people-related reverberations of this catastrophe despite the
consequences it engendered. The subsistence way of life in native
fishing villages is in peril, and profound social upheaval occurred in all
Alaskan cities. The purpose of this phenomenologically based clinical
and community study is to describe the psychosocial impact of the Exxon
Valdez disaster on the citizens of Seward, Alaska.

Methodological Standpoint

I executed this research project while simultaneously directing the
Seward Life Action Council (SLAC), an umbrella of clinical programs.
My work included (1) co-coordinating response to the aftermath of the
disaster with medical and law enforcement personnel, (2) doing

Richard Alapack 135

psychotherapy, (3) and supervising a team of substance abuse/mental
health counselors and domestic violence sexual assault advocates. The
(dis)(ad)vantage of my position was trying to comprehend the impact
of that which I was simultaneously trying to heal and to change. This
position gave me access to gather data from all respondents of the
disaster: clinical clients, city officials, professionals, scientists, clergy,
and members the governor's oil spill commission. Daily I gathered
sheaves of conflicting evidence through a kaleidoscope of personal
stories, public reactions, professional narratives, official spiel, and ob-
vious propaganda. I selected some of my informants; others I en-
countered randomly.

My research task, not unlike someone who had blundered into an
ambush, was to grapple with fanatic emotions, raw prejudices and vain
opinions. It was necessary to hold in abeyance the split idea-forms about
the disaster. Two groups were vying in Seward, each idealizing its
viewpoint and deprecating the other. Environmentalists, loud in the
politics of disgust and shrill in behalf of penitential ecology, were
advocating reparation and trusteeship of the earth. Expansionists,
equally shrill with sounds of progress and development, were linking
natural resources such as gas, oil and timber to the creation of Alaskan
jobs and to American self-sufficiency.

In order to balance passionate, committed praxis with sober reflec-
tion, I practiced an hermeneutical phenomenology. Stated somewhat
differently, I bracketed my personal/theoretical presuppositions and
continually criticized my own standpoint so that I might disclose objec-
tively meaningful portraits of Seward. Since I did not "reduce" myself
out of the landscape, but interpreted text/context from within it, my
study is interpretive, not descriptive.

Results

Psychosocial findings about the Seward-specific situation must be
contextualized, since the wider horizon of meanings about the
catastrophe co-constituted them. These include (1) common images of
the lands which the Exxon Valdez oiled, (2) the way in which the event
has been named, and (3) public awareness about the oil- defiled sea,
shore, animals and fish.

The Primordial North Country: A Portrait of the Unique Milieu

Not every mile of coastline is the same. To assess the magnitude
and meaning of this disaster it is important to appreciate (1) the physical

136 The Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage

beauty of this now tainted landscape: the Prince William Sound, the
Kenai Fjords National Park, and the Gulf of Alaska are majestic jewels
in magnificent settings; and (2) the psychological resonances of the
northland: absolute permanence, sublime innocence, pristine silence,
and primeval loneliness.

The massively rugged mountains, which cradle the Harding Ice
field, are punctuated by scores of lakes, streams, and waterfall. The
largest glaciers outside Antarctica and Greenland, "so beautiful they
make you cry," inch down toward the sea from mountains capped by
permanent ice fields (Lopez, 1987, pp 224-225). In their descent, they
carve intricate fjords, and release to sea floating icebergs, implacable
creatures of pale light, fearfully and austerely beautiful. The ice groans
its prehistoric laments, the muted and forsaken moans of something
deeply wounded and abandoned (Haines, 1989, p. 103). The waters of
the Sound are abundantly fertile (1) with various marine mammals
including humpback whales, Stellers sea lions, sea otters, harbor seals,
and killer whales, (2) with fish and shellfish: pink salmon, sockeye
salmon, Dolly Varden and cutthroat trout, Pacific herring, halibut,
rockfish, (3) with large birds such as sea ducks, loons, pigeon guillemots,
cormorants, and majestic bald eagles, and (4) with colonies of seabirds
packed in breeding sites on cliff faces of the Chiswell and Barren Islands
(such as tufted puffins, horned puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, murres,
black oystercatchers). The vast wilderness is ample too with varied
terrestrial mammals: brown bear, mink, black bear, Sitka black-tailed
deer, and river otters. Our eerie ties to the wildlife, who live within this
850 mile arc, pulls at us like tidal currents, evoking root questions about
our human ancestry" (Lopez, 1987, p. 33). Each summer lush blueber-
ries and cranberries, fireweed and Forget-Me-Nots, punctuate the
rough terrain with delicately fragile color. The aurora borealis, on
wondrous occasions, unfurls its curtain of pale green and soft rose, then
undulates gracefully across the winter sky. It throws the sky into a third
dimension and draws the viewer with such awe-ful tenderness that
self-pity is impossible (Lopez, 1987, p. 211).

The stark vastness of the Northland, its extreme and unpredictable
weather, humbles us. Lopez (1987) describes the atypical and
"numinous events" of this land: frostbite and permafrost, "a forgiving
benediction of light, and a darkness so dunning it precipitates madness"
(p. 7). He writes: "It is not that the land is simply beautiful but that it is
powerful. Its power derives from the tension between its obvious beauty
and its capacity to take life... and... from the feeling that this is the floor
of creation" (Lopez, 1987, p. 351-352).

Richard Alapack 137

Dismantling Normative, Taken-for-Granted Terminology

For the sake of conceptual clarification and adequate formulation,
it suits to deconstruct the normative notion that the Exxon Valdez made
an "oil spill" in the Prince William Sound. First of all, that designation
localizes and minimizes the catastrophe which affected 1,200 miles of
coast along the expansive Gulf of Alaska and the lower Cook Inlet. The
oiled coastline included portions of the Chugach National Forest, Alas-
ka Maritime, Kodiak, and Alaska Peninsula/Becharof National Wildlife
Refuges, Kenai Fjords National Park, Katmai National Park and
Preserve, and Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve (Nicoll,
1991). Secondly, the common practice of baptizing occurrences like the
Exxon Valdez with the name, "oil spill" is a ruse. Remember when your
three year old knocked over her glass of milk? That was a "spill.*' Our
often used English injunction not "to cry over it" implies triviality and
invites putting the apparent crisis into perspective. The Exxon Valdez
was not a spill; it was a hemorrhage, the worst discharge from a tanker
into a body of water in U.S. history. Calling it by the innocuous word
"spill" obscures the fact that 10.8 million gallons of oil, a black river
rushing into the sea, is a raw tragedy, an environmental holocaust.

The meaning of the event is in the spread of the oil, not the spill of
it. Caught by ocean currents and driven by 73 mph gale-force winds, it
advanced relentlessly rapidly across 1,200 miles of coastline, a "suffocat-
ing blanket of death," a "spreading pestilence" of terrifyingly im-
measurable devastation (Spencer, 1990, pp. 8, 133).

From an economic perspective, the ruptured crude threatens an
$130 million fishing industry. From an archeological viewpoint, the
cleanup activities themselves endanger several cultural sites which mark
the Native and Russian roots of Alaska. From an environmental
perspective, the massive upset in a plethora of ecosystems jeopardizes
entire regional ways of life in southcentral and southeastern Alaska.
Viewed globally, the reduction of the event to simple "spill" condones
the continuing processes which led to the above ruination. To loan a
phrase from Herman Melville, the event of the Exxon Valdez is a
transcendental horror.

Another "handy explanation ought to be dismantled. From the
perspective of the oil industry, the event was simply an accident, the
inevitable price tag of progress. Davidson (1990) describes the event
with keener insight as a collision between the "politics of oil" and "our
responsibility to the earth"(p. xi). Borrowing a ready-to-hand concept,
he names the Exxon Valdez a story of addictions to power, money,

138 The Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage

alcohol and energy consumption (Davidson, 1990 p. xi). This manmade
disaster, however, is not an act of human foible reducible to personality
characteristics or group dynamics. Addictions can be treated; mistakes
can be averted; response plans can be formulated and implemented. Oil
hemorrhages, twin-born with the essence of technology, are structurally
inevitable. They will only vary temporally and spatially. Heidegger
(1927/1962) has demonstrated that there is no "cause" of death except
life itself. The That of death is definite; the When and How of death are
indefinite. Fresh oil disasters will happen, inevitably, repeatedly, inter-
mittently; the only surprises will be time, place and manner.

How should we designate an oil hemorrhage? It is analogous to a
disease. Booth (1962) and Siirala (1981) have demonstrated that the
eruption of a major illness is not an "accident": each bears a message to
be needed. My personality, character or lifestyle co-selects a "fitting"
disease: heart disease, arthritis, cancer, tuberculosis, or AIDS. Colaizzi
(1978) has also argued that each cultural epoch, by its way of life and
thought paradigms, "invents" or solicits its peculiarly preferred disease.
The Middle Ages, horrified by the flesh, suffered the black plague, a
disease passed by touch. In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash
polio was the privileged disease which revealed a crippled society.
Cancer is the disease which expresses our post-modern culture's chaotic
coil of technology, mounting bureaucracy, excessive proliferation/con-
sumption of facts and "goods," and the uncontrollable encroachment
on all freedoms.

The Exxon Valdez disaster, inextricably linked with technology, is
a cancer within the earth's ecosystem. Rather than picturing a tanker
bumping into a submerged rock and making a spill, imagine a vessel
moving chaotically and destructively, bearing a heinous cargo. Each
time the Exxon Valdez embarked from the terminal, it was carrying a
plague.

Black Death of Mammals and Birds

A "notice of lodging of summary of effects" was filed at the United
States District Court, District of Alaska on April 8, 1991, by the U.S.
Department of Justice, Environmental Enforcement Section (Nicoll,
1991). The comprehensive scientific evidence of mortality rates and
estimates of future causalities demonstrates the lethality of the Exxon
Valdez. Excerpts from this document follow:

During 1989, a total of 1,011 sea otters carcasses were recovered in
the spill area... The total number of sea otters estimated to have

Richard Alapack 139

been killed directly by the spill ranges from 3,500 to 5,500 animals...
Two hundred harbor seals are estimated to have been killed ... One
hundred and forty-four (144) dead bald eagles were found follow-
ing the spill... More than 2,000 sea duck carcasses were recovered
... including more than 200 harlequin ducks... It is estimated that
between 1,500 and 3,000 pigeon guillemots were killed... Ap-
proximately 36,000 dead birds were recovered after the spill; at
least 31,000 of these were attributed to the effects of oil... No
massive die-offs of adult fish were found following the spill, and
adult salmon, for example, were able to migrate to spawning areas
after it. However, fish are most vulnerable to oil contamination
during the early stages of their life cycles. During 1991, scientists
will begin to be able to assess affects on adult fish... that would have
been exposed to oil as eggs or larvae... The full extent of short term
injury to pink salmon cannot be assessed until after the 1991 run
returns to spawn in the summer... Whether the adult population (of
Pacific herring) has been affected by... larval injuries will not be
determined until the 1989 and 1990 cohorts return to spawn in 1992
and 1993. (Nicoll, 1991, p. 6ff.)

Oil-Slicked Water, Beaches, Fish and Wildlife

From the original site of the hemorrhage at Bligh Reef, a black tide
with death-tendrils spread inexorably across the Prince William Sound.
By Easter Sunday the wind-whipped sea churned the oil into a large,
flat, foamy, bubbly residue that locals called "chocolate mousse." Spen-
cer (1990) describes the mousse as "a storm-beaten mixture of oil and
seawater, reddish brown and very thick, full of debris, coiling around
kelp and driftwood and shoreline like a boa constrictor" (p. 69). By the
time the thickened crude washed ashore, it formed pools of "tar goop,"
"tar globs" or "black mayonnaise." Eventually as the lighter parts of the
oil evaporated or were broken down by bacteria, they coagulated into
a residue dubbed "tar balls." By the time the cleanup crews arrived, the
balls had expanded into large, thick, crusted pancakes, two or three
inches thick, one to two feet in diameter, commonly called "cow pat-
ties." Spencer (1990) describes them as the products of a "diarrheic
cow" who had "wandered the beach in confusion" (p. 77). The crude
covered the rocks on the beaches with the consistency of "bearing
grease, warm fudge, cold honey" or "blackstrap molasses" (Spencer,
1990, pp. 96-97). Endlessly the oil kept moving, spreading to new areas,
leaving behind filthy footprints, returning to spots once cleaned, mark-
ing and staining the land, leaving scars. The cancerous oil, alternating
between remission and relapse, would be cleaned from the beaches on

140 The Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage

one day and washed back to the rocks and shale on the next It could
not be arrested: not by booms, nor skimmers, nor absorbent pads, nor
by the experimental substances, Inipol and Corexit, used in the con-
troversial process of bioremediation.

Psychosocial Portraits of Seward

Post-Calamity, Year One

Green Cancer within the Souls of the People. During the spring and
summer of 1989 Exxon heaped $2 billion on a mammoth and wasteful
cleanup effort. This hemorrhage of funds from corporate coffers was
the twin of the oil which gushed from the pierced tanker. As a result, a
green malignancy metastasized in the souls of Seward's citizens. Seward
(population 2,500), is one of the oil-slicked cities within the Gulf of
Alaska. It is situated on Resurrection Bay, the gateway to the 669,541
acre Kenai Fjords National Park. From July, 1989 to July, 1990 the
atmosphere in Seward shifted in four distinct spatio-temporal moments:
(1) The summer: during the height of the flurry of the so-called cleanup
activities; (2) After September 15: when Exxon halted operations; (3)
During the dark winter months; (4) Near the anniversary date of the
disaster, when renewed cleanup operations were anticipated. The fol-
lowing portraits of the psychosocial repercussions of the disaster on
Seward reveal the effects of the cancerous currency

Summer: The Height of the So-Called Clean-up Operations. This city
at "the end of the road" was hustle and bustle throughout the summer
of 1989, swarming with life. Permanent residents had the disaster thrust
upon them. An avalanche of transients, following the money, swelled
Seward by 18%. Eventually they filled apartments and flooded the
beaches with tents, vans, campers and trucks. By July there was no
available lodging in Seward. People simply "crashed" into rooms parti-
tioned into makeshift apartments. Most landlords charged exorbitant
prices. Folks felt fortunate to be paying outrageous rent for mediocre
lodging. I know of only one landlord who did not raise his rent in the
face of the influx. The prices of purchasing houses was inflated too,
partly since local real estate companies were able to rent them for top
dollar. Seward was an hub of activity for cleanup efforts and for profes-
sional/scientific activities. By July it had been transformed from a quiet
little, tourist town into a place of mayhem. The portable bird and otter
rescue shelters concretely symbolized the physical changes. The helter
skelter pace equally indexed ongoing chaos, havoc and pandemonium.
Money was plentiful. The legitimate rate for workers, beach cleaners or

Richard Alapack 141

chambermaids, was $16.69 per hour. By working overtime, folks typical-
ly earned $1,750 per week. It was difficult for the locals to resist taking
a "spill-related job." Angry shopkeepers and resentful innkeepers help-
lessly watched employees desert their posts to take advantage of the
artificial wages. Veco, Exxon's contractor, paid $5,000 per day to rent
boats for the efforts on the water. At least one piper plane pilot was
making $90,000 per week. How was this money viewed? It wasn't "Texas
Tea" or even the "Black Gold" associated with the infamous Alaskan
pipeline. Day laborers, city officials and professionals shared the same
belief: that the money Exxon lavished was cosmetic, part of an elaborate
public relations campaign to solicit favorable press, to frame a good
image, and to elude litigation. Nevertheless the malignant dollars,
tainted, tarred, greasy, and smelly, affected everyone by their presence
or absence. Sewardites are frequent eyewitnesses to frolicking otters,
zany puffins, and majestic eagles. Now workers saw or had to handle the
carcasses of these oil-coated creatures. Many simply walked away from
the fiasco in disgust or for ethical reasons. Others cashed their big
paychecks, but with reluctant eagerness. During the summer the city
was xenophobic. Remarkable to report! Seward is a tourist town, accus-
tomed to accommodating strangers and international tourists. Three
months after the Exxon Valdez, however, resentment was festering
towards those who had come to take advantage of the disaster. There
was tension and violence in the air. The city was doing a slow burn on
smoldering anger and impotent rage. Getting a post office box was a two
week wait while the Postmistress checked to see if your address was a
real domicile or just a spot on the beach. Arranging telephone service
was tedious since the phone company was already frustrated by the
futility of disconnecting phones faster than they could install them. The
stranger, instead of being guest and potential friend (the Greek
hospice), was viewed as either an Exxon "company man" or an oppor-
tunist chasing the "fast buck." The locals used a veritable lexicon of
pejorative terms: drifters, scumbags, scavengers, bar flies, hooligans,
sleazebags, rounders, riffraff, bozos, bimbos, dopesters, low-life, white-
trash. The general expectation, and often the experiential fact, was that
these homeless, chronically unemployed, drunken fugitives were going
to ravage the city! Badmouthing was a common pastime. Exxon, Veco,
and the Department of Environmental Conservation were favorite
scapegoats. Much criticism was warranted. Sour grapes about not get-
ting a job or large contract underwrote most complaints. By the summer
Seward was in crisis. The phone company alerted us that our crisis line
had the highest rate of busy signals in the city. We procured a new $7,000

142 The Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage

phone system. The police reported a soaring crime rate. The number of
DWI charges referred for screening nearly tripled.

The Predicament of Civic Leaders. The mandate to respond to the
disaster usurped the ordinary work-routine of elected civic officials,
health/social service professionals, scientists, administrators of various
agencies, and the police. By the summer they were living on adrenaline,
suffering from our modern malady, stress. Frazzled by long, irregular
hours and broken routine; harried by too little sleep and irregular, fast
food meals, they were wearing chronically tired eyes. By late September
they were edgy, jumpy, on the verge of collapse, suffering combat
fatigue. Put differently, they were holding their grief to ward off psychic
disintegration. The disaster wrenched them particularly because they
knew its impact, implications and reverberations. Daily they faced the
red tape of bureaucrats and the insincerity of securocrats. Daily they
lived with the many levels of complexity and ambiguity related to the
upheaval. They were brooding about the impossible tasks, the artificial
situations, and the pseudo-problems. About the various ambiguities
they were ambivalent. Brooding took different shapes: depression
edging toward despair, punctuated by nausea, infuriation, bitterness,
and rage. These emotional dispositions had no clear and distinct
referents. Kugelmann (1985) describes the processes of diverting the
passion of grief into seemingly productive work, of filling open-wounds
of loss with busyness (p. 5). Each day their actions had the deceptive
appearance of efficacy and goal-directedness. But caught in the
whirlwinds of pressure, tensions, and frustrations, some were "not
themselves." They were "vampires"! "The vampire is a blood addict...
Stress is for people what blood is for vampires" (Kugelmann, 1985, p.
22). He continues: "Modern forms of stress/grief allow for no resolu-
tion... the position of loss keeps us energized, pining for we-know-not-
what, feeling our inferiorities and helplessness and hence vulnerable to
the demand that we take charge and flexibly adapt. So we willingly bite
back on that which feeds us, hungry...." ( Kugelmann, 1985,p. 29). These
individuals could not have shed their stress; the price tag would have
been collapse.

The Spillionaire. The disaster was also a boon. "Spillionaires," as
profiteers were called, parlayed the tragedy into a bonanza. Some, who
had prior standing in the community, and/or had financial resources,
received preferential treatment. Not a few sold out, took payola, over-
billed for services rendered, or otherwise made capital on the disaster.
At least one boat owner "kickbacked" one million dollars to procure a
contract worth millions. The general populace viewed spillionaires with

Richard Alapack 143

a mixture of envy and resentment. They gave living proof to Wertz's
(1986) assertions that the human being and the rat are the only creatures
who will take despicable advantage of the misfortunes of their own kind
(pp. 145-146).

The Run-of-the-Mill Worker. Many ordinary workers made more
money than they had ever imagined. Disposition of the unprecedented
paychecks varied greatly. Some used it wisely: improved the present by
paying bills, or buying a reliable vehicle; built for the future by saving
for college tuition, or purchasing a fishing vessel. Too many squandered
it on "adult toys," or wasted it on legal/illegal substances. More than a
few awoke in Anchorage after a binge with nothing, or in Seward after
a spree with a strange face on the adjacent pillow.

Unprecedented bonanzas do bring opportunity for fashioning new
starts. But a new beginning is not a matter of gaining financial resources
alone. Making a down payment on a house includes changing a way of
life, not just modifying behavior. Too many could not muster the
courage to turn a corner. They lapsed into familiar patterns, repeating
waste and destruction.

The Darkening Days: Encounters with "Fierce Misfits"

Substance Abusers. After Exxon completed its operations on Sep-
tember 15, our substance abuse program was the first component
impacted. The court sent us "hardcore" alcoholics whose sobriety had
been sabotaged by pseudo-wealth. Others, who now had the bucks for
an unusual period of partying, indulged in an equally extreme celebra-
tion. Several got "hooked" for the first time since it was the first time
that they could afford the "hard stuff or an expensive habit. The
phenomenon of "easy come, easy go," not unlike gambling away sum-
mer wages, repeated the "boom or bust" attitude which has punctuated
Alaska's history.

"Old Five and Dimers. " The sudden confrontation with artificial
wealth, with temporarily having income beyond one's wildest dreams,
forced most to confront themselves in a new way. In the real or
metaphorical mirror, people saw something about themselves which
they had never realized. Faces now reflected new appetites. Eyes now
oozed greed. The oil disaster changed people irrevocably.

Domestic Violence. After the cleanup activities ceased, the disil-
lusionment of being "no better off in spite of the inflated salaries took
a heavy toll on marriages. When the wind blew and came the cold, the
dark, and the holidays, all the seasonal issues of winter in Alaska were
geometrically intensified. In the dark December days fierce misfits were

144 The Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage

mixing their drinks with the "blues" about lost riches and missed chan-
ces. Simultaneously they were blaming others, lashing out, provoking
each other, hitting new lows. The impact upon the children of these
fierce misfits, especially the wee ones whose eyes were still sparkling
and bright, was awful. The youth, caught in the middle of their parents'
war games, showed themselves all too familiar with the marks and stains
of violence and abuse. The police figures showed an 167% increase in
violent crimes (from 32 in 1988 to 84 in 1989). These included three
rapes and 17 cases of domestic violence. There were six rape exams
conducted at Seward General Hospital in 1989 and four in 1990. The
local Division of Youth and Family Services reported 14 cases of
physical abuse. Our staff witnessed the truth of Soren Kierkegaard's
assertion that no matter how low we humans sink, we can always sink
lower.

Living Through an Ontological Revolution. The horror of the dis-
aster provoked the negative phase of the "Ontological Revolution"
(Alapack, 1984). Idealists, environmentalists and "political virgins,"
who naively trusted the System, experienced "crashes." At stake was the
beginning of the end of innocence: coping with disenchantment at
having witnessed the best and the worst in themselves and others.
Typical dilemmas which erupted were: How to square the vision of the
Whole with "the cold hard facts of life"? How to lose innocence without
losing hope? How to integrate one's newly discovered rage? How to
regain the capacity still to see innocence, to keep a place for it within
one's lifespace?

White collar and blue collar workers alike were stunned by the
horrors they witnessed. One woman's job was picking up oil- slicked
birds, dead or alive. As the Summer of 1989 waned, her crew found less
and less of the critters. She reported that she had been ordered to "slick"
puffins so that their boat, which was making $3,000 per day would not
be docked. The obedient crew played "rodeo" with the puffins to
increase its daily "count." But she, who considered herself jaded, who
thought that she had witnessed or performed the worst acts of human
nature, found herself infuriated and sickened. She was fired for
vociferously protesting the "bounty hunting."

1990 Spring in the Sound: Anniversary Time

The interconnected and reciprocal impact among people within the
community glared in the spring of 1990. The year had turned full circle.
Civic leaders were no longer able to ward off grief reactions. The work
of framing annual reports, and the efforts to leave an historically

Richard Alapack 145

accurate document of the events, activated memory. The reappearance
of certain people, the publication of books about the event, the return
of certain sights, sounds, smells, or hearing again certain words and
phrases, also brought back memories. According to the phenomenon of
the Zeigarnick effect, we remember best incomplete tasks. Everything
about the Exxon Valdez was left in a state of irresolution. The crisis did
not simply abate by the anniversary date. No issue pertinent to the
disaster had been resolved yet; all matters were still one in a row and
daily changing. The future looked thoroughly threatening in its vague-
ness. Questions about survival of the salmon plagued the anxious souls
of the fishermen. Pervasive helplessness kept mounting. The sense of
being victimized by gigantic corporations and by governmental
bureaucracies kept multiplying. The single diagnostic label for all of the
above is cancer. Those who had endured the unusual year, craved an
elusive, impossible closure. In the spring of '90 few folks were proceed-
ing smoothly through the normal phases of responding to a loss (Freud,
1917/1963) or to a natural disaster (Gist, 1989). They were coping
instead with a terminal illness.

The anniversary time coincided with the decision about another
round of cleanup efforts. How would Exxon conduct this one? In March,
1990, Seward was swelling again with drifters geared for another bonan-
za. Civic leaders, who were finally engaged with their grief-work, who
were concerned that the now-sullied wilderness was vulnerable to fur-
ther taint, were simultaneously aware of the unbridled greed and avarice
of those who craved another dose of the malignant money. Words,
spoken late at night in the bars, and written on the tavern toilets, were
saluting Exxon for last year's dole, and hoping for another "spill"! Spring
in Seward was tense. This time Exxon employed a select squadron of
company workers in a focused $2 million cleanup campaign. Our
caseload, which had leveled in the early spring, increased dramatically
in June and July. The ache for closure was colliding with swollen
appetites; greed, shame, and indignation, kept rebounding off each
other.

After Two Years: Deniers, Casualties and Survivors

Levinas (1969) offers us decisive words: "violence does not consist
so much in injuring and annihilating persons as in interrupting their
continuity, making them play roles in which they no longer recognize
themselves, making them betray not only commitments but their own
substance, making them carry out actions that will destroy every pos-
sibility for action" (p. 12).

146 The Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage

The grief-work for those who suffered loss is not yet over. The
various cancers are not even in remission. From the point of view of two
years after the disaster, we at SLAC, a therapeutic agency, are cleaning
up after the cleanup. We are just beginning to identify three groups: (1)
deniers, who still refuse to recognize that the disaster created any
profound aftershocks, (2) survivors, who have put into reasonable
perspective all that the horror engendered, and have moved on with
their lives, and (3) casualties, whose devastation by the ordeal shows in
the shapes of substance abuse, domestic conflict, stress and depression.
Many are still in "an emergency mode," unable to shift out of crisis-
thinking. It is beyond the scope of this inquiry to anticipate the long
term effects.

Discussion

A Philosophical Meditation on Technology

The conceptual framework necessary to ground our findings is In
the works of Heidegger (1927/1962, 1950/1971a, 1952/1971b, 1962/
1971c, 1953/1959). Simultaneously his texts offer a vision of an alterna-
tive "way" of thinking about technology.

From a Heideggerian perspective, the inevitability of the Exxon
Valdez is inscribed in the history of Western thought. Technology, the
culmination of Greek rationalism, carried with it a lapse into forgetful-
ness. We have forgotten what it means "to be"; we have lost track of
time; we do not know how to think; and we are in denial about our
mortality. In consequence, the coil of technology, scientism and
capitalism continually ravages of the earth. Heidegger (1950/1971)
names this menace Gestell (p. 84). What does this rich word connote?
Gestell carries the senses of being "framed," "set up," or "duped." It
connotes sterility, mendacity, concealed matters, or obscurity. It sug-
gests scaffold, gimmick, and armature. The technological attitude blurs
Being's radiance, renders it empty and tawdry. It underlies our provoca-
tive, imperial, dominating, engineering approach toward the natural
world. We challenge nature, compel it. We rape the land, strip it of its
ore and liquid; we move mountains; we try to coerce the sea; we aim to
conquer space. Under the domination of technology, all beings what-
soever are disclosed as "stock": objective, calculable, quantifiable, and
disposable. All beings are reduced to raw material or product, valuable
only insofar as they serve the profit motive or contribute to the enhan-
cement of corporate power. Not only "things" are at stake, but also the
human spirit The menace of this menace is precisely that the person is

Richard Alapack 147

reduced to a mere commodity, a piece for the stockpile (as 'human
resources').

In our dual worship of profit and of efficiency for efficiency's sake,
we harness, exploit and destroy everything which, by vocation, we should
shelter and safeguard. We blitz and bully, but we forget. And we are
oblivious of our very forgetfulness! Technology has become not only
one point of view among others but the privileged perspective. As we
are about to collide with the twenty-first century, the natural attitude is
the technological attitude. Our belief in the ultimate power, value, and
goodness of technological solutions is taken for granted.

This double oblivion has edged the human race to the brink of
ecological devastation and political suicide. With it, however, emerges
the possibility of new choices. Technology brings Western metaphysics
to a "close." This "closure" puts us at a "turning." The "crisis" offers
both opportunity and danger. A paraphrase of Heidegger's
(1962/197 lb) appropriation of Holderlin's poetry: "Where there is
danger that is recognized precisely as danger, there grows the freeing
strength of salvation" (p. 9).

Heidegger says, deadly seriously, that the future of the world might
turn upon the proper apprehension of the verb "to be." Thinking alone
will change the world. Heidegger insists we have not yet begun to think.
The interlaced attitudes of science and technology are anti-thought.
Thus Heidegger summons us to appropriate and surpass metaphysics so
that we might save the earth.

The original Greek term for existents, for the things that are, was
physis. The word denotes "the process of a-rising," the "self-blossoming
emergence" of being, its "inward-jutting-beyond-itself," its power to
endure (Heidegger, 1953/1959 p. 14). Physis, logos, and poesis were
realized when something was brought forth from hiddeness, unfolded
unto its proper being (Steiner, 1978/1987, p. 137). Originally techne had
a pivotal place within this complex of meanings. Authentic technique
signifies the ability to plan and organize freely, creating and building in
the sense of pro-ducing (Heidegger, 1953/1959, p. 16). Terms like
"craft," "cunning," "knack," and "flair" capture this original sense of
technique. Under the rule of metaphysics, the vocation of authentic
techne (to donate to the earth, to shepherd it, and to accept its harvest),
was debased into the inauthentic provocation that Heidegger named
GesteU. The fantastically successful Gulf War gives living proof to
Heidegger's affirmation that what is most uncanny is that everything
"works," and that successful functioning pushes ceaselessly further
toward still more functioning.

148 The Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage

Heidegger does not naively dismiss technology. "Salvation" will
elude us as long as we either pursue technological solutions blindly, or
"damn it as the work of the devil" (Poggeler, 1963/1987, p. 200). The
truly redeeming act would be to re-forge the broken bond between
techne and poesis. How? The two pivotal, balancing attitudes are
poeticizing and dwelling. Originally thought was poetic. Poetry, rooted
in logos, gathers and grounds, initiates and preserves. If we should begin
to poeticize, we would think in an holy/wholly way: docile, obedient,
letting-present/withdrawing in reticence. To poeticize is to think; to
think is to thank; to thank is to dwell. If we, who are "ontologically
excellent," would dwell poetically, then we would shepherd all creation.
Our "buildings" would shelter all the manifold and wonderful springs
of being: the fourfold of earth and sky, divinities and mortals. Only such
authentic edification would support a genuine Homecoming.

The Government's Response

A document released by the Trustee Council of Alaska, a conjoint
product of the State and Federal Governments, contains the official
governmental response to the disaster (The 1991 State/Federal Natural
Resources Damage-Assessment and Restoration Plan for the Exxon Val-
dez for the Exxon Oil Spill). It lists 72 studies performed in 1989, 50
undertaken in 1990, and 42 proposed for 1991. The studies are sub-
sumed under ten categories: (1) Marine Mammals, (2) Terrestrial Mam-
mals, (3) Birds, (4) Fish/Shellfish, (5) Coastal Habitat, (6) Subtidal
Habitat, (7) Technical Services, (8) Archeological Resources, (9)
Economic Studies, (10) Restoration. The document cites $35 million
worth of studies. Conspicuously absent is any completed/proposed study
of the psychosocial repercussions of the catastrophe, or recognition of
the web of psychic consequences/altered behaviors of those who coped
with the calamity. What does this neglect mean?

This neglect is the crux of the matter of this particular inquiry. The
malignant currency, identified in Seward, is just another name for the
symbiosis between Alaska and the oil industry. It suits to address this
neglect of psychosocial factors. (1) From a psychological perspective,
minimizing people-related impact is not surprising. Lifton (1967), in his
splendid study of the survivors of Hiroshima, unmasked the general
reluctance of human scientists "to risk professional confrontation with
great historical events which do not lend themselves to established
approaches or categories" (p. 3). He also uncovered the phenomenon
of "psychic numbing" or "psychic closing-off" (Lifton, 1967, p. 508-510).

Richard Alapack 149

A common tactic of survivors, in a post-disaster period, is to steel
themselves against continually feeling the aftershocks of the horror.

(2) What about this current disaster? The beaches are not even
cleaned yet, and already officially Alaska wants to forget! The terror of
it all, and the horror are almost forgotten. It came and went, the "spill."
The region of the Sound still looks magnificent. Abundantly it still
houses puffins and otters, salmon and bears. Soaring eagles still cast
their shadows. Uncannily, everything is working again! The government
of Alaska wants to settle with Exxon, collect a large paycheck, and
relegate the Exxon Valdez to the remote past. The State has elected, as
a direct (albeit unconscious) backlash of the Exxon Valdez fiasco, a
governor who wants to spend $500 million in a public relations campaign
to expand oil and gas exploration in a designated wildlife refuge
(ANWR), and who also wants to build a freshwater pipeline from
Alaska to California. Does this not constitute a double oblivion?

(3) From an historical perspective, Alaska both readily "forgets"
and easily overlooks human suffering. The history of the Last Frontier
is a series of exploitative bonanzas: fur from otters and seals; gold from
the hills; silver gold from the salmon runs; black gold from the pipeline.
Alaska was ripe for this disaster. The tale of the Exxon Valdez is a new
version of an old edition: striking it rich at the expense of the Land or
Sea.

(4) Reflection upon the human cost unmasks the sine qua non of
this manmade disaster and the ongoing factors which foster forgetting.
The Exxon Valdez is the inevitable consequence of the symbiosis be-
tween Alaska and the oil consortium, of which the 800 mile pipeline
from Valdez to the North Slope is the concrete symbol. It suits to
describe this symbiosis: (a) Between 1969 and 1987 the State of Alaska's
oil related income totaled $29 billion, or 80% of its total income, (b) In
that same period $400 million was distributed to Alaskan residents, (c)
$800 per year is the average amount given to each residents from a trust
established by the oil consortium, the "Permanent Dividend Fund"
which Alaskans fiercely want politicians to safeguard, (d) There is no
State income tax or State sales tax (Davidson, 1990). (e) The Exxon
Valdez created thousands of jobs in 1989, boosting the employment rate
by 6.2 percent, and propelling Alaska out of a three year-old recession.

In the matter of the Exxon Valdez, the symbiosis drew a suffocating
ring which encircled all respondents. Within that ring complacency had
festered, perniciously neglectful. In the face of the disaster, no system
was prepared. A quick and effective response was hamstrung. Everyone
was limited by the ready-to- hand, dominant conceptual and existential

150 The Exxon Valdez Oil Hemorrhage

paradigms. Thus there are no demons in this affair. Power and dedica-
tion, sacrifice and avarice were the exclusive prerogatives of nobody.
Both those who were victimized by gigantic corporations and
governmental bureaucracies, and those who were supposedly in control
of such organizations, were rendered helpless equally by the way of
thinking which Heidegger has named Gestell. Even those who were
apparently foes danced in the same ring, twins.

The Current State of Affairs

The symbiosis has assumed slightly different shapes since the
"spill," but layers of unresolved issues linger. On March 12, 1991, a
billion dollar "judicially supervised settlement of claims" was chiseled
out between Exxon and State and Federal Trustees. A month of con-
troversy ensued. To the average Alaskan, the plea bargain seemed a
stroke of negotiation-genius on the part of Alaska's administrators. For
the environmentally conscious, it was an unconscionable sellout. Alas-
kan Native groups insisted that it compromised their ability to collect
from Exxon for irreparable destruction to their subsistence way of life.
Appraisal was confounded because the State shrouded scientific studies
in the secrecy of the phrase "litigation-sensitive." Eventually the
Federal Government released summaries of the $35 million worth of
scientific investigations, material which revealed damage greater than
had been projected or reported. Then, on April 24, 1991, U.S. District
Court Judge Russel Holland shockingly rejected the proposed criminal
settlement, calling it inadequate restoration for a happening which was
"off the chart" compared to any other U.S. environmental disaster.

Now it is back to the bargaining table. Everything dangles. It may
drag on for ten years. Meanwhile, Exxon has thirty days to withdraw it
guilty pleas to four criminal misdemeanor pollution charges. Meanwhile
the $900 million civil settlement is in jeopardy. Meanwhile Alaskan
Native interests have a chance to be represented. Meanwhile all Alaska
lives in the meanwhile.

Concluding Reflections

Whatever humankind shall do in the inherently vulnerable ecosys-
tem of this northern environment will engender irrevocable conse-
quences for the earth as a whole. Thus this local manmade disaster is as
a metaphor for the technological destruction of the planet. Whenever
our earth is dismantled by our own technologies, then Gestell holds sway.
This "way" of technology, as Heidegger shows, undergirded the Nazi
Extermination, which is Lacoue-Labarthe's (1990) apt designation of

Richard Alapack 15 1

the Holocaust. Gestell also was the foundation for the death-in-life
which followed the explosion of the atomic bomb. The Japanese used
the word hibakusha, the "explosion-affected people" to describe the
survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What about Chernobyl? On April
25, 1991, the eve of its fifth anniversary, Mikhail Gorbachev appealed
to the world community to realize that tragedy has not become a thing
of the past, that we are just beginning to realize fully the social, medical
and psychological problems created by this catastrophe. Are we on the
way to filling the earth with contaminated, disaster-affected people?

Ultimately the Exxon Valdez tragedy of 1989 will be remembered
as a marker event in Alaska's history, as the "accidental spill" which
could have been averted, as a happening which magnetized the resour-
ces of the citizens who, though victims, became their own rescuers. It
will be a tale told to my children's children. Will the narrative unfold as
another adventure story, a tale of heroics? Or will it unmask the
oblivion, and call Alaska and the world to remember? Until the Exxon
Valdez, the symbiosis between Alaska and the oil cartel may have been
conscious only marginally. The disaster disclosed dramatically, however,
(1) that all Alaskans had consorted in the unholy arrangement, and (2)
that it is a menace to our homeland. Today we already see adumbrations
of the judgment of history: the Exxon Valdez was another chapter in the
volume of sacrileges against the environment.

Alaskan shame is the root phenomenon is this affair: present in
those for whom the event was a revelation or an epiphany; present by
its absence in those who, for whatever motives, steeled themselves
against the horror. The Exxon Valdez, by sullying "The Great Land,"
desecrated its holiness. Alyaska! Alakshak! Alaksu! Alaska! The Last
Frontier will never be the same. The event earned the name which
Eskimos have given the white man: "the people who change nature."
We change society too, with malignant currency.

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14, 143-168.

The Playing Field Is the Laboratory:

An Experiential Approach to

Sport Psychology

James /. Barrell and Donald C. Medeiros

This chapter is based on fifteen years of applied sport psychology
in many diverse settings. These applications have included work with
Mark Davis, 1989 National League Cy Young Award winner; the 1984
University of Florida football team, which won their first and, to date,
only SEC football championship; and the 1987 San Francisco Giants,
National League West champions. This work has proven effective in
helping coaches and players to maximize their potential and to improve
their performance.

During the time the authors have been practicing and teaching
sport psychology at the collegiate and professional levels, we have
experienced a gap between academic and applied sport psychology and
have found much of the information derived from carefully controlled
laboratory experiments to be of very limited help in the applied setting.
We believe this is because of the approach to scientific inquiry which
has been adopted by "mainstream" sport psychology. Based on an
approach originally developed by physics to study inanimate objects, this
"natural science" approach, and its consequent methods, seems par-
ticularly limited for the study of human phenomena.

154 Experiential Approach to Sport Psychology

Most sport psychology research seems heavily influenced by the
positivistic, reductionistic approach developed by 19th century physics.
Developed to deal with inanimate objects, this approach was soon
adopted by early psychological researchers and, to this day, continues
to dominate the research methodologies most often used in American
psychology labs, including sport psychology labs. The results of such an
approach to the scientific study of people are readily apparent. People
are studied as if they were mechanisms, machine-like in the way they
function. This is most clearly seen in several major threads of sport
psychology research and application. One such type of research is that
done in the laboratory, far from the playing field. In many cases, these
investigations take place in environments artificially constructed, with
little or no connection to actual athletic events and use non-athletes as
subjects. A second thread is the attempt to identify the personality
attributes of successful athletes, perhaps in the hope that other, less
successful athletes might become more "like" the successful ones.
Finally, a third and very popular thread is the application of visual
imagery and self-talk modification.

These threads have in common the assumption that certain tech-
niques made to athletes will inevitably lead to improvements in perfor-
mance. This is the mechanistic flavor of current research in sport
psychology mentioned above. Certain mechanisms, such as personality,
self-talk, visualization, etc. are assumed to be connected to behavior by
physical laws of determinate causality. Alter the mechanism and be-
havior will predictably be altered as a result. This type of assumption
concerning human functioning is a direct descendant of the behavioris-
tic thought which influenced American psychology for so many years.
Previously, it was stimulus and response which were connected by causal
laws, as in the reflex. Supply energy or force and the reflexive behavior
was inevitable, as in the knee-jerk reflex or the eye-blink reflex. It seems
that sport psychology has simply substituted more complex terms, e.g.,
thoughts, emotions, personality traits etc. However, the person is still
considered in the same manner. Make some change and, via laws of
causality, the outcome is fixed and predictable. It is in this way that we
see humans being considered as if they were machines.

The techniques of self-talk and visualization can help illustrate how
sport psychology considers athletes (persons) in a mechanistic manner.
In both of these instances, a particular aspect (albeit possibly important)
of human functioning is isolated from the life-world of the athlete. From
the richness and complexity that comprise the athlete's life-world, one
particular facet is "extracted." "Negative" self-talk is identified and then

James J. Barrell and Donald C. Medeiros 155

"removed," to be replaced with "positive" self-talk, in the hopes that
performance will be enhanced. Or, athletes are asked to visualize
themselves as relaxed, being successful, coping with difficult situations,
etc. Once again, a particular, small facet of the athletes rich, complex
life-world is selected out for modification. Athlete's are, in a sense,
programmed to perform excellently. They are given the effective ways
of thinking and visualizing. If they faithfully follow these prescriptions,
laws of determinate causality will, within given probability levels, lead
to enhanced performance. This is all reminiscent of a mechanic install-
ing new spark plugs, or tuning up a car's engine. Remove the defective
part, add the right part, and the car will run as good as new.

We view psychology, and therefore, sport psychology, differently.
We have a different conception of the goal of scientific inquiry. There-
fore, our approach to scientific inquiry and our methods differ sig-
nificantly from those of "mainstream" psychology. People are not cars.
One part is not necessarily as good as another part. Certainly, spark
plugs, brand new and in working order, would not optimize the perfor-
mance of a Corvette if they were designed for a Chevrolet Nova. In the
same way, self-talk sentences may not be equally helpful (or helpful at
all) to different persons. Visualization may not necessarily help all
athletes in the same way. It may not help some at all. We see people as
non-completed projects, in a continual process of relationship with the
world around them. People are continually shaping their reality and
being shaped by it, and so may be described as a network of relationships,
ever shifting. This stands in stark contrast to the view of persons as
mechanisms which follow determinate laws of causality.

We are suggesting sport psychology needs to recognize that in
order to help optimize athletic performance, we must adopt an ap-
proach and methods which more fully allow us to understand people. In
order to more fully understand people, in all their richness and com-
plexity, the natural science approach, which analyzes and synthesizes
abstractly, is insufficient. Sport psychologists need to adopt an approach
and methods which allow them to understand the concrete life-world of
the athlete, the world as it is actually lived and experienced by the
athlete. People do not experience their thoughts (self-talk) in isolation
from their emotions; nor their values, expectations, desires, etc. These
facets of human experience, treated as "isolated elements" or
"mechanisms" by psychologists with a natural science approach, are
experienced as a "whole" by persons. To use methods of elementistic
stimulus response analysis, to reduce this unified experience into
isolated parts is to destroy the essential unity of the life-world. It makes

156 Experiential Approach to Sport Psychology

a faithful understanding of the athlete's life-world impossible. It makes
optimizing performance much more difficult. In contrast, pheno-
menological approaches to sport psychology, such as Alapack (1973)
and Pollio's (1982), yield deeper understandings of athletes and their
lived-world.

What we have found to be particularly useful and effective in sport
psychology is an approach based upon a different conception of science
and psychology, an experiential approach. This human science ap-
proach has provided the basis for numerous research studies of motiva-
tion, stress, emotions and performance (Barrell, 1990). The conceptual
foundations of this approach emphasize that human experience is the
crucial factor in understanding human behavior, whether on or off the
playing fields. The authors have enjoyed a great deal of success using
this experiential approach. It provides the basis for a method which can
disclose the athlete's experience, and thereby bridge the gap between
the laboratory and the playing field for the practicing sport psychologist.
This approach and the methods it generates meet the commonly ac-
cepted criteria for science broadly understood (Price & Barrell, 1980).

A Holistic Experiential Approach

We believe sport psychologists need to focus on persons holistically
if we are to uncover useful information for the athlete to apply in
competitive situations. Removing athletes from the playing field, in
order to study them, destroys the basic unity of the athlete and the
situation in which he or she performs. The situations in which athletes
compete, as well as the experiences of the athlete in those situations,
are all part of a unified whole. Attempting to break down this whole and
to analyze it into its hypothetical 'separate parts' destroys the essential
wholeness of the system with which we are working. In our opinion, it
makes finding effective solutions to human problems, both on and off
the playing field very difficult and is a primary reason much of the
information generated from traditional laboratory research is of limited
help in applied settings.

The experiential approach and method (Barrell, 1986, 1990) is
objective in the best sense of that term. It requires that the sport
psychologist include his or her own experiences as "data to be under-
stood" rather than pretending they do not exist. The sport psychologist
observes self as well as athlete. Moreover, this method is empirical in

James J. Barrell and Donald C. Medeiros 157

the most faithful sense of that term. Observations and understandings
are to emerge from the actual lived situations of athletes.

An important assumption of this approach, and its methodology, is
that people are co-creators of their own experiences. Persons are not
simply passive reactors to an external world which exists independently
from them. Rather, we see persons as actively projecting meanings onto
the many events in which they participate. A person's past history,
current needs, desires, expectations, beliefs and values all help to
constitute what a given situation will mean to that person, and, in turn,
affect that person's behavior and performance.

Once we have arrived at the various meanings through which
athletes live particular situations, we are able to utilize a set of principles
from a comprehensive model of human emotions (Price et al, 1985) that
has been developed through experiential research. This model
describes the relationships between goals, intentions or desires, expec-
tations and resultant emotions. For example, an intense desire to avoid
missing a field goal in the last few seconds of a game (negative avoidance
goal) and a feeling of uncertainly about this outcome (expectation) can
create a great deal of anxiety for the field goal kicker. ITiis, of course,
can lead to decrements in performance (Barrell et al, 1986).

As the title of our article suggests, the playing field is where we
conduct and apply our research. Our method requires the sport
psychologist to become a co-investigator along with the athlete, a
co-investigator in the search for the critical experienced meanings which
help us understand how an athlete lives a particular situation. Another
way of describing this process is that we are co-explorers who are trying
to determine what meanings have been attributed to various events or
situations by athletes. Once these meanings have been discovered, it is
a relatively simple step, with the help of models developed from pre-
vious experiential research, for the co-investigators to arrive at various
ways to either alter counter-productive meanings or strengthen helpful
ones.

A key difference between our approach and others of which we are
aware is the co-investigator role played by the athlete. Although the
sport psychologist is the guide, using experiential knowledge built up
from previous research, the athlete becomes a completely involved
participant in the exploration and resultant understandings. Finally,
models are continually in the process of development and further
refinement. Co-investigators work with athletes serving as a data base
to continually test the validity of conclusions and predictions.

158 Experiential Approach to Sport Psychology

Application to the Playing Field

Some examples from our work will help clarify this approach and
method. A common concern we encounter in our work is that of
"pressure situations" and how to improve performance in these situa-
tions. For some athletes, a pressure situation is seen as a threat: a
possibility for something negative to happen, in the process of the
contest or afterwards. Other athletes see the same situations as an
opportunity for something good to happen and in some cases, this kind
of situation may not even be a source of pressure for some athletes. We
believe the difference lies in the meanings each of them projects onto
the particular situation, or, in other words, how they "live" these situa-
tions.

These meanings represent the type of subject matter (data) we
investigate along with the athletes. Once they understand how they
co-create these meanings (along with the actual situation) and the
accompanying emotional response (anxiety or excitement in this case)
then it is relatively easy to help the athlete create alternate ways of
viewing the situation, ways which are couched in the athlete's own
language. At no time does the jargon which seems to abound in much
psychological research play a role in these discussions. The language
used is the language of the athlete's own experience, of his life-world.

We will now give specific examples of how we use the experiential
approach and method. We were working with a major league relief
pitcher who was concerned about his poor performance in what he
termed pressure situations. The experiential method of research was
explained to him. He came to understand that he was also going to be
doing the work, as well as ourselves. He was going to be doing the
discovering of how he was co-creating pressure in the situations he
described to us. We discovered along with the pitcher that he felt
he was a "failure" and was letting down his teammates, manager and
coaches with his poor performances. Once the pitcher became aware of
how this type of thinking led to his feeling nervous and "under pres-
sure," and in fact, hindered his performance, we set out to find alternate
ways to view these situations.

To begin with, his current experiences needed to be noticed. How
was this pitcher co-creating his pressure? Here is a description from one
of his experiences on the mound in a tight situation.

I notice myself squeezing the ball and thinking, "OK, settle down!
Don't let this game get away like you did last night. Oh, damn it!
There is my dad sitting behind home plate. Don't look at him!

James J. Barrell and Donald C. Medeiros 159

Concentrate!" I take a few deep breaths. I notice how I can hear
individuals yelling out obscenities. I'm thinking "Wow! I can really
hear these clearly since there are only a few people in the stands.
Oh, well, here goes."

One of the important issues in this pitcher's experience was the
nature of his negative avoidance goal. What was he afraid of? What was
he trying to avoid? When the "bottom line fear" was clarified, we were
able to discover what alternatives existed to counteract the negative
effects of this fear. These alternatives, of course, would have to relate
to the kind of person that this pitcher was and the way he experienced
his life-world. For example, although he may have been taking things
too seriously, there were at least three ways of reducing his excessive
arousal (excessive in that it led to decrements in his performance):
having perspective (it's only a game and only one game at that), play-
fulness (go have fun), and confidence (feeling on top of things). Because
of his person type, for this particular pitcher at this time, the best choice
was perspective: realizing that this was just a game and there was really
nothing to lose.

In another example, we found it helpful to use images as a way of
assisting a different player to view situations in a more constructive way.
For this starting pitcher, one particular image was explored first. This
was the image of a "surgeon," coming into the operating room, cool,
calm and collected. The surgeon would then proceed to be analytical,
figuring out what needed to be done and be accurate, in control, "slicing
up the plate" or "cutting up the corners." However, after considerable
discussion, the athlete felt that this image "wasn't really him." More
discussion followed and yielded another scenario which he felt really
"fit." This was the image of himself as a "warrior" or a "battler," a person
who could come into a rough situation, be outnumbered, face over-
whelming odds and pretty much take charge and overpower the opposi-
tion. The particular example he thought of was a Chuck Norris type, as
opposed to the more clinical precision of a Bruce Lee. In this mental
set, that of the "battler," base runners did not bother him. Instead of
being upset by a fluke hit or two, the situation could be turned into one
of challenge for the "battler."

When it became clear that this pitcher was comfortable with this
image, that of the "battler," he was asked to take a few moments in tough
spots, step off the mound, and think of himself as a Chuck Norris type
battler. He could even imagine himself doing Chuck Norris type stunts.
Then he was to get back onto the mound and proceed to take charge.

160 Experiential Approach to Sport Psychology

The use of this particular image was so successful that the pitcher's ERA
dropped from 4.68 at midseason (before our work began) to 2.51 after
we finished

Performance enhancement work was initiated with Joel
Youngblood (San Francisco Giants) during midseason 1985. Joel, bat-
ting only .200, was having a difficult time at the plate. Following dialogue
with Joel, it was determined that he was putting a great deal of pressure
on himself to break out of his slump. In an attempt to understand this
problem and find a solution, he was trained in self observation. What
was discovered was his preoccupation with trying to solve the problem
through altering physical factors, such as his swing and stance at the
plate. The game was stressful and no longer fun for him. Joel began to
understand the difference between trying to make something happen
and letting something happen. Moreover, the game needed to be put in
perspective. Probably most significant was his increasing awareness of
his own mental processes. For example, he would notice such thoughts
as "Come on Joel! You have to do it this time," or "There you go again.
Stop thinking!" Joel became amused at the mechanical and automatic
nature of these thoughts. However, his ability to observe them without
judgment enabled him to gradually begin to separate from them and
their power over his performance. By the end of the season, Joel's
batting average climbed seventy points and his .270 average led the
team.

Multi-dimensional consulting work was performed for the Orlando
Magic professional basketball organization. Services were offered that
included personnel/player selections, performance enhancement,
prescriptions for game sets and consulting across a broad base which
included team building, communication, stress and pain management,
etc. All this work was based on an approach that helped coaches, players
and support staff understand human experience and make decisions
based on this information. This work contributed to a highly successful
season for this second year expansion club. The Magic exceeded all
expectations in winning thirty-one games and finishing ahead of all the
other expansion teams as well as many established teams in the National
Basketball Association.

Summary and Conclusion

In conclusion, an experiential approach was applied to problems
related to sport psychology. Both the sport psychologist and the player
were co-investigators. In one example, they shared their own experien-

James J. Barrell and Donald C. Medeiros 16 1

ces of pressure and anxiety and in this way were better able to under-
stand how the player created his own pressure. Moreover, experiential
knowledge from an emotion model (Price & Barrell, 1984) enabled the
sport psychologist to guide the exploration in such a way that it allowed
for this particular athlete to discover that the nature of his goal rather
than the uncertainty of what might occur in pressure situations was the
major problem which needed to be addressed.

In still another example, there was a search for helpful images to
guide the "re-structuring" of an athlete's thinking about pressure situa-
tions. It was the athlete's own experiences which determined what
image was appropriate. It was his experience which decided that the
image of a "surgeon" didn't fit and that of a "battler" did. Overall, these
examples from our work emphasize the significance of feedback from
the athletes' own experiences for the development of appropriate
solutions.

In summary, we offer an approach and a method for conducting
research in the field of sport psychology which yields psychological
understanding that is demonstrably relevant to athletes and coaches.
This approach provides ways in which the information may be used to
help athletes and coaches improve performance. In that way, it offers a
bridge, spanning the gap that exists between research findings in sport
psychology and current attempts at applying these findings on the
playing Geld.

References

Alapack, R. J. (1973). The phenomenology of the natural athlete, Dissertation

Abstracts International 73-14, 580.
Barrell, J. (1990). The experiential method. Acton, MA: Copley.
Barrell, J. (1986). A science of human experience. Acton, MA: Copley.
Barrell, J., Aanstoos, C, Richards, A., & Arons, M. (1987). Human Science

research methods, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 27, 424-457.
Barrell, J., Medeiros, D., Barrell, J. E. & Price, D. D. (1985). The causes and

treatment of performance anxiety: An experiential approach. Journal of

Humanistic Psychology, 25, 106-122.
Pollio, H. R. (1982). Behavior and existence: An introduction to empirical

humanistic psychology. Monterey: Brooks/Cole.
Price, D., Barrell, J. E., & Barrell, J. (1985). A quantitative-experiential analysis

of human emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 9, 19-38.

162 Experiential Approach to Sport Psychology

Price, D. & Barrell, J. (1984). Some general laws of human emotion: Inter-
relationships between intensities of desire, expectation and emotional
feeling. Journal of Personality, 52, 389-409.

Price, D. & Barrell, J. (1980). An experiential approach with quantitative
methods: A research paradigm, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 20,
75-95.

APPENDIX

The West Georgia College
Graduate Psychology Program

Christopher M. Aanstoos

The essays in this volume were written by the faculty of the psycho-
logy department at West Georgia College. This appendix is included for
readers interested in learning more about the department's graduate
program. It consists of sections about the faculty, the curriculum,
departmental resources, and the students. These are preceded by an
initial narrative, "The West Georgia Story." This story is not an official
or comprehensive history of the graduate psychology program. To be
complete, such a chronicle would have to take into account the perspec-
tives of all the people who actually lived the events of that unfolding. It
would contain the diversity, richness, common purposes, differing view-
points, and conflicts of interpretations that we have lived conjointly in
our real history together. The following narrative, instead, is strictly my
own tale, my own 'love song' to and about the program.

1 I would like to express my gratitude to my colleagues who, by sharing with me their
own vision of the program and by commenting on earlier drafts of this section,
contributed enormously to its final form. In particular I would like to thank Bob
Masek for his patient assistance.

164 The Graduate Psychology Program

The West Georgia Story: A Personal Perspective

The West Georgia humanistic psychology graduate program began
in 1967 with Mike Arons, who thought it up and made it happen. After
a year establishing a humanistic program at the Prince of Wales College
in Canada, Mike was asked by the psychology department at West
Georgia to become its chair, and to initiate a humanistic emphasis.
Those who invited him tell me they really had no idea what they were
in for. They simply understood the need to make the teaching of
psychology relevant to real life experience. They dreamt of a psychology
education that spoke to students' lives. Jim Thomas, then one of the
department's faculty, had read Rogers, Maslow and Combs. Through
them, he saw an approach to psychology that embodied his dream. His
persuasion won over his colleagues. Jim asked Maslow to suggest a new
department chair, and Maslow nominated Mike.

Upon Mike's arrival, the curriculum was extensively revised. Even
standard courses were revisioned and novel, non-traditional sources
were often utilized alongside or in place of traditional textbooks. These
included literary and philosophical texts, artwork, films, music and
experiential exercises. In addition, thirty new courses were added, many
never previously available anywhere in the country, and a humanistically
oriented M.A. program established. It combined ancient Eastern and
contemporary Western psychology. Courses such as Holistic Psychology
East and West; Phenomenology of Social Existence; Human Growth and
Potential; Myths, Dreams, and Symbols; Values, Meaning, and the In-
dividual, WUl, Choice, and Belief; Phenomenology of Spatiality and
Temporality; and Creativity provided a rich smorgasbord that quickly
made West Georgia a mecca for students and faculty starving for a
psychology that addressed their human experience. Students and faculty
understood this was not a psychology of the impersonal Other, but a
psychology speaking to and transforming one's own Being. And
it did transform much as Hesse's Magic Theater transformed the
Steppenwolf by opening him to the myriad possibilities by which he was
himself. Those it touched have gone on to become not only
psychologists and professors, but also city commissioners, college presi-
dents, U.S. congressmen, computer wizards, and millionaires, as well as
poets, magicians, mystics, theologians, and farmers. Essentially, they
have gone on to become themselves. The West Georgia program
provided the clearing (Heidegger's anwesen a "coming-into-
presence") within which one's own nascent self could emerge and
thrive.

Christopher M. Aanstoos 165

In the early years of the West Georgia program, its flourishing was
invigorated by a willingness even an eagerness to be attuned to
the forward edge of cultural developments as the cultural revolution of
the 1960's swept across America. Courses on sensitivity, alienation, the
psychology of women, and Buddhist worldviews (to pick just four ex-
emplary cases) were already in place at West Georgia by 1968, at a time
when their cultural impact was just beginning to be felt, and long before
mainstream psychology evinced any awareness or interest.

The counterculture offered a trenchant critique of the 1950's banal
and narrow-minded suburbanism. America's self-satisfied smugness
concealed an anxiety-ridden, sexist, racist, homophobic, materialistic
war machine, whose spiritual emptiness the counterculture relentlessly
exposed. Rejecting the traditional 'psychology of adjustment' and its
recommendation of "playing it safe" to win "the rat race," the counter-
culture opened a profound revaluation of human possibility, freed from
conventional stereotypes. Though inspirational to the West Georgia
program, these cultural openings were not imbibed in a merely ad hoc
or unreflected manner. Many of the faculty sought to critically evaluate
the whole range of recent cultural-historical experience, and developed
powerful critiques of the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. In the main, how-
ever, our work and thinking was not motivated by political considera-
tions, but by 'the truth of the lived.' The psychology program was
receptive to cultural trends that liberated the farther reaches of human
existence because they connected with the program's own deep ap-
preciation of a holistic understanding of human existence.

The West Georgia program aimed to be mind-blowing, to en-
courage students to go beyond the presupposed, to the very ground of
their existence. Nurtured by Tom Sills' facilitative deanship and by
Mike's genius for fostering creativity by removing its obstacles, this
atmosphere became a unique haven, the sheltering place within which
one could ask any question, teach any course, explore any crevice of
human existence. This openness did not preclude even traditional
psychology, which was also taught on its own terms by some faculty,
while it was being critiqued, revised, or ignored by others. In some
classes, the changes were more in how the material was taught rather
than its essential content.

The key to the specialness of the program lay in the diversity its
openness fostered. Within such a large space, innovative approaches to
psychological thought, too often constricted by the natural science bias
in traditional psychology, found a home. Phenomenological, existential,
hermeneutic, transpersonal, dialogal, experiential, perceptual, Jungian,

166 The Graduate Psychology Program

Gestalt, parapsychological, Oriental, and body psychologies all were not
merely welcomed, but integrated, each cross-fertilizing the others. This
integration did not mean everyone danced to the same tune. We have
had outlaws, misfits, both authentic and reactionary rebels, hermits, and
misanthropists under the same roof. The specialness was that all people
and all viewpoints could co-exist here, as individuals, because no one
person or viewpoint ever called the tune or even said we had to dance.
What always came first was this wild respect for the individuality of
others, and the view of this faculty as a community of individuals. We
knew that the maintenance and respect of our individualities and
freedom of space, this 'wildlife preserve,' had to come first, because
without it all else fails. The genius of Mike Arons' chairmanship was
that he provided that. He provided a special occasion where each
individual could find a place. Once done, he let go, and deeply trusted
that faculty and students alike would best grow and give their best if they
simply had the unfettered space to do so. That ethos and form of
'leaderless leadership' was Mike's greatest gift.

The program quickly attracted students of all kinds from
throughout the United States, as well as many other countries. Some
were among the best by any standard, while others were those whom
traditional graduate programs would have never given a chance. But
admission has always been based on an intrinsic recognition between
the applicants and the faculty that this was the sort of program they were
seeking. A recognition, that is, of a shared sense of being.

They brought with them a remarkable assortment of talents.
Among those I have taught, one had done statistical research that
resulted in the rewriting of federal welfare laws; one was already a
lawyer; another, a belly dancer; one was an anti-apartheid activist from
South Africa; one came with a graduate degree in economics; another
with a graduate degree in political science. For many students, coming
to West Georgia meant a courageous change of direction from more
traditional, seemingly safer ways to prepare for a career in psychology.
For others, West Georgia was there just when they felt most in need of
a change in their life's direction. Unbounded by concerns for safe
choices, open to navigating the possibilities of what might be.

From this extraordinary gathering, a powerful sense of community
emerged, a keen experience of existential ensemble. Students forged
intense relationships with each other, and with faculty. Encounters and
learning happened not only within, but also beyond the classroom: at
meals, at parties, at retreats, during trips together to conferences. There

Christopher M. Aanstoos 167

were gigantic celebrations, with hundreds of people, as well as small
groups for zen meditation or shamanic drumming.

Over the years, many new faculty also became involved. They
brought with them various currents relevant to humanistic psychology,
from such centers as Duquesne, Brandeis, Florida, and California.
Department members sought new faculty who would respect and
flourish in our unique atmosphere of openness; those with 'a good
heart* We sought those whose own creativity, individuality, and willing-
ness to probe deeply could enable students to grasp this range of human
potential. It was this welcoming of diverse possibilities that gave the
program its kinetic zing and, most importantly, its liberating ambience
of unbridled intellectual freedom, the unfettered freedom to
wholeheartedly pursue one's deepest intuitions about truth as lived.

Let me remember, as an illustration of that spirit, my own first
glimpse of it. While still teaching at Penn State, I went to a convention
in New Orleans, where I was a panelist on a very penetrating symposium
about phenomenology. My co-panelists included two from West Geor-
gia (Mike Arons and Bob Masek). Mike had driven there in a van, with
about a dozen other West Georgia faculty and students. That evening,
we all went out to the French Quarter together. Of course, we couldn't
figure out how our collective dinner bill so exceeded the individual
shares we'd each computed. But that didn't slow us down. That palpable
sense of finding ourselves in a greater Gestalt lent the evening an utterly
magical aura. At one point, we congregated in front of a bar, from which
emanated some inviting music. People began to dance. Right there on
Bourbon Street. Our mood was one of such infectious gaiety that soon
the entire block of pedestrians had joined our dance. All except an
elderly couple, very well dressed, who stood and watched, in wide-eyed
amazement. Unfolding before their eyes was a great story to tell the
grandchildren about back home of their visit to the French Quarter. The
West Georgia students also noticed this elderly couple. Very gently and
empathically, they approached the couple, and invited them to join the
dance. The students' solicitation was so heartfelt that the couple did join
in. And danced the night away. Right there on Bourbon Street.

That spirit of living our psychology has infused all my teaching at
West Georgia, even my most difficult textual courses. I've taught cour-
ses centered on such demanding books as Merleau-Ponty's
Phenomenology of Perception, Kierkegaard's The Concept of Dread,
Foucault's Madness and Civilization, Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego
and Being and Nothingness, Gurwitsch's Field of Consciousness, Boss's
Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis, Husserl's Crisis of European Scien-

168 The Graduate Psychology Program

ces and Philosophy as a Rigorous Science, and Heidegger's Being and
Time. In every one, the figure of that elderly couple dancing in the street
reminds me that ours is a psychology of living experience.

The Faculty

Currently the department includes twelve full-time faculty, or thir-
teen including one person filling in for a faculty member on leave for
the year. All thirteen have earned doctorates, and many had extensive
teaching, research or clinical experience prior to coming to West Geor-
gia College. All arrived after Mike Arons had already established the
department's humanistic program, attracted by the possibilities of con-
tributing to its development. Below are brief biographic sketches of
their accomplishments and interests. To provide an additional indica-
tion of their sources of inspiration, each was asked to identify ten to
fifteen books that had most influenced the development of their own
thinking, teaching, and writing. The list of the books they named is
included at the end of each biographic sketch.

CHRISTOPHER M. AANSTOOS was born in 1952 on Saipan, in
the Marianas Islands, and grew up in the Washington D.C. area, as well
as in Austria, Germany, and Greece. After earning a B.A. degree from
Michigan State University, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in
phenomenological psychology from Duquesne University. His disserta-
tion, under the mentorship of Amedeo Giorgi, examined the pheno-
menology of thinking, and began his critical dialogue with cognitive
psychology. That ongoing critique exemplifies his larger interest in the
philosophical and methodological foundations of psychology. Many of
Chris's publications are in this area, including his editorship of the 1984
volume of the Studies in the Social Sciences entitled Exploring the Lived
World: Readings in Phenomenological Psychology. These interests are
reflected as well in chapters he has contributed to such books as
Qualitative Research in Psychology, Advances in Qualitative Psychology,
Measurement and Personality Assessment, Imagination and Phenomen-
ological Psychology, and Duquesne Studies in Phenomenological Psycho-
logy (Volume 4). This concern for psychology's conceptual foundations
is also the root of Chris's participation in organizations such as the
Human Science Research Association and the American Psychological
Association, where he has served as program chair and on executive
boards. He is also the editor of The Humanistic Psychologist, one of
APA's division journals. Chris joined the West Georgia faculty in 1982,
after teaching for three years at the Pennsylvania State University.
Through his experiences with his children, Megan and Lucas, he has
also enjoyed cultivating a specialty in developmental psychology, and

Christopher M. Aanstoos 169

has edited the volume The World of the Infant. His teaching and research
interests, when time permits, also extend across the broad spectrum of
consciousness's intentive relations with the body, others and world,
sampling such themes as spiritual experiences, dreaming, television
advertisements, and existential transformation. The books Chris listed
as most important to the development of his own thought include:
Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis (Medard Boss), The Rebel An
Essay on Man in Revolt (Albert Camus), Identity and die Life Cycle (Erik
Erikson), Psychology as a Human Science: A Phenomenologicalty Based
Approach (Amedeo Giorgi), Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in
the Organized Society (Paul Goodman), Being and Time (Martin Heid-
egger), Steppenwolf (Hermann Hesse), Neurosis and Human Growth:
The Struggle toward Self-Realization (Karen Homey), The Crisis of
European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Edmund Hus-
serl), The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (R.
D. Laing), Man's Search for Himself (Rollo May), Phenomenology of
Perception (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), Nausea and Being and Nothing-
ness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (Jean-Paul Sartre), and
The Booh On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (Alan Watts).

RICHARD ALAPACK attained his M.A. and Ph.D. from Du-
quesne University, in Pittsburgh. During his graduate studies, while
working with schizophrenic individuals and severely disturbed adoles-
cents at Woodville State Hospital, he learned psychopathology and
psychotherapy, and began a career that has braided clinical praxis/ad-
ministration, university teaching, and qualitative research. Rich carried
his doctorate across the border to Waterloo, Ontario, where he enjoyed
a fourteen year tenure at the University of St. Jerome's College. In
addition, he has taught at all the major U.S. person-centered psychology
programs: Duquesne University (1971-72), the University of Dallas
(October, 1973), Seattle University (1978-79 and Fall 1987), and West
Georgia College, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1988.
Rich has also lectured in Europe and Mexico, and he has worked with
criminally addicted persons at the Iealese Institute for Forensic Psychol-
ogy in Pittsburgh. Recently Rich has served at unique times in remark-
able places. In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil disaster, he went to
Alaska to direct an umbrella of programs at the Seward Life Action
Council dealing with the aftermath of the catastrophe. His chapter in
this volume researches this maker event in Alaska's history. A summer's
journey to South Africa, as "overseas research fellow" of the University
of Pretoria and the Human Science Research Council, punctuated his
work in Seward. Arriving on the very day Nelson Mandela and F. W. de
Klerk signed the agreement to begin dismantling the legal structures of
apartheid, Rich spent seven weeks touring the country, lecturing not

1 70 The Graduate Psychology Program

only on the Alaskan oil disaster, but also his more longstanding teaching
and research interests: adolescence and psychotherapy. He has con-
tributed articles to such journals as The Humanistic Psychologist and the
Journal of Phenomenological Psychology on the phenomenology of
various adolescent experiences, including "the first kiss" and "leaving
home/' and some of his essays on these topics are collected in the
volume Milestones in Adolescent Relationships. The books Rich listed
as most important to the development of his own thought include:
Becoming (Gordon Allport), / and Thou (Martin Buber), The Inter-
pretation of Dreams (Sigmund Freud), Psychology as a Human Science:
A Phenomenologically Based Approach (Amedeo Giorgi), Being and
Time (Martin Heidegger), Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (Carl
Jung), Either/Or (Soren Kierkegaard), Ecrits (Jacques Lacan), Women
in Love (D. H. Lawrence), Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority
(Emmanuel Levinas), Existential Psychology (Rollo May), Phenomenol-
ogy of Perception, (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), On Becoming a Person
(Carl Rogers), and The Little Prince (Antoine de St. Exupery).

MIKE ARONS Cabbies, like bartenders and barbers, listen to and
tell stories. The storyteller and listener are somehow personally impli-
cated in these life stories, even when they are ostensibly centered on
others. After years of factory work, sales and cab driving in Detroit,
Mike started college and chose psychology as a major. No enterprise
could have stood more starkly in opposition to the narrative perspective
on the world than the field of psychology at the time. Yet its claims
to detachment and objectivity notwithstanding and, in fact, with these
as its central themes psychology revealed itself to the former cabbie
as a story of particular intrigue: an ironic ongoing story that erases its
fuller historical, cultural and existential meanings with the very
"positivistic pen" it uses to itemize its achievements. Thanks to its
exceptions, such as Jung, Campbell, Keen and Krippner, the particular
truth-revealing potentials of myth are currently gaining coin even in this
field that has prided itself on myth-busting. Mike's chapter in this
volume reflects the way he has been present to psychology since he
entered Wayne State University as a twenty-seven year old freshman.
Graduated in 1961 with a degree in psychology, he went to the Sorbonne
where, under Paul Ricoeur, he completed his doctorate on the subject
of creativity research as expression of the implicit story of American
psychology. He returned to the United States for post-graduate study
under Abe Maslow, Jim Klee and George Kelly at Brandeis University,
and then helped pioneer two humanistic psychology programs, the first
on Prince Edward Island, Canada, and the second at West Georgia
College, which he has been chairing for the past two decades. Mike has
published or presented over a hundred papers in such areas as creative

Christopher M. Aanstoos 171

and intuitive processes, human science research, psi phenomena, and
humanistic and transpersonal education and psychology. He partici-
pated in the creation of three, and currently serves on the executive
boards of five, national associations. At West Georgia, he offers courses
in Creativity, Intuition, Hermeneutics, the History of Psychology,
Human Growth and Potential, Myths and Symbols, and Personality and
Motivation. Mike listed as most important to the development of his
own thought the following books (in addition to lots of comic books and
fairy tales): Creativity and Psychological Health (Frank Barron), Crea-
tive Consciousness (Henri Bergson), L'Invention (Rene Boirel), The
Myth of Sisyphus (Albert Camus), Notes from Underground (Fyodor
Dostoyevsky), From Death-Camp to Existentialism (Viktor Frankl),
Siddartha (Hermann Hesse), Freedom and Culture (Dorothy Lee),
Toward a Psychology of Being (Abraham Maslow), The Courage to
Create (Rollo May), Phenomenology of Perception (Maurice Merleau-
Ponty), The Meeting of East and West (F. S. C. Northrup), Freud and
Philosophy (Paul Ricoeur), The Little Prince (Antoine de St. Exupery),
and Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology
(Jean-Paul Sartre).

JAMES J. BARRELL was born in Glendale, California in 1937.
Sports was a prominent interest for him through high school. After years
of work as a mail carrier, landscapes electrostatics researcher and
amateur boxer, Jim started back to school to pursue a Ph.D., which he
earned in experimental psychology from the University of California at
Davis. Since 1980 he has been an associate professor of psychology at
West Georgia College, after having also taught at the University of
California and the University of Florida. Jim's teaching, writing, re-
search and consulting interests are in the areas of phenomenology,
existentialism, human science and humanistic psychology. His major
work has centered around the development of a qualitative research
methodology he has called the experiential method. From this method,
Jim has evolved comprehensive models of human emotion and motiva-
tion. Details of this research have been presented in numerous journal
articles, at professional conferences, as well as in three authored texts:
People: An Introduction to Psychology ; A Science of Human Experience,
and The Experiential Method. As a professional sports consultant, Jim
has successfully applied information from these models to such or-
ganizations as the San Francisco Giants and 49ers, the Detroit Lions,
and currently the Orlando Magic. He has also served as a senior research
psychologist in areas related to pain and stress management for the
National Institutes of Health, the Medical College of Virginia, and the
Stanford Research Institute International. Graduate courses Jim espe-
cially likes to teach include Human Growth and Potential, Research

172 The Graduate Psychology Program

Explorations, and Values, Meanings, and the Individual. The books Jim
listed as most important to the development of his own thought include:
On Method (David Bakan), Psychology as a Human Science: A Pheno-
menologically Based Approach (Amedeo Giorgi), The Transparent Self
(Sidney Jourard), The Flight of the Eagle (J. Krishnamurti), Phenomen-
ology of Perception (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), The Fourth Way (P. D.
Ouspensky), Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (Fritz Perls), Being and Nothing-
ness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology and The Transcendence
of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness (Jean-Paul Sartre),
The Stress of Life (Hans Selye), Zen Mind, Beginners Mind (Shunryu
Suzuki), and Phenomenological Psychology (Erwin Straus).

KAREEN ROR MALONE was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where
her father, in conjunction with Carl Whitaker, was developing an ex-
periential approach to psychotherapy. For better or worse, she hung
around adults who brought in Zen masters for retreats and listened
intently to late night conversations with many local and national
humanistic psychotherapists, affiliated with the American Academy of
Psychotherapists. She received her M. A from Duquesne University and
her Ph.D. from the University of Dallas. Her interest for many years has
been supplementing the traditional approaches of psychology through
phenomenology and through alternative paradigms developed by other
disciplines. Using tools provided by postmodern theorists and feminists,
Kareen's research illuminates the manner living and breathing flesh is
transformed into functional and rather predictable manifestations of
sexual difference. Most of her professional energy, whether in teaching
or writing, is directed toward articulating the way, to purloin Foucault,
"the self is made flesh." This means very careful attention to how the
body is brought into meaning and involves the study of Lacanian psycho-
analysis and post structuralist literary theory. Kareen's aim is to de-tech-
nologize psychology and understand the pre-personal body which in-
habits us. Kareen's manuscript Phallus as Copula between Body and
Culture is presently being considered by Routledge for their Critical
Psychology series. Since her arrival at West Georgia in 1990, her
graduate courses have focused on cultural psychology, especially on
various aspects of postmodern theory in relation to psychology. The
books Kareen listed as most important to the development of her own
thought include: Nightwood (Djuna Barnes), Roland Barthes by roland
barthes (Roland Barthes), The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (Michel
Foucault), Fragment of a Case of Hysteria (Sigmund Freud), Beyond the
Pleasure Principle (Sigmund Freud), The Daughter's Seduction:
Feminism and Psychoanalysis (Jane Gallup), Being and Time (Martin
Heidegger), Ecrits (Jacques Lacan), The Four Fundamental Concepts
of Psychoanalysis (Jacques Lacan), Economic and Philosophic

Christopher M. Aanstoos 1 73

Manuscripts of 1844 (Karl Marx), Phenomenology of Perception
(Maurice Merleau-Ponty), and Being and Nothingness: An Essay on
Phenomenological Ontology (Jean-Paul Sartre).

ROBERT J. MASEK grew up spending the winters in San Francis-
co and the summers in Chicago. His father was a jazz musician, a tenor
man, and jazz has been an enduring influence and presence throughout
his life. Bob received his B.A. in psychology from the University of
Oregon, his M. A. in clinical psychology from Duquesne University and
his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Regina, Canada.
His post-doctoral work includes study with Ralph Reitan in the area of
clinical neuropsychology and two summer sessions at the Harvard Medi-
cal School concerning psychotherapy with narcissistic and borderline
disorders. Bob is a former editor of The Human Science Newsletter and
is a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology.
His publications reflect a long standing interest in the power of pheno-
menological thought to stand as reference point for clarifying the
clinical praxis, theoretical self understanding, and visions of disorder in
schools of clinical psychoanalysis. His last two papers, including the one
in this volume, are critical evaluations of Kohut's Self Psychology, as
approached through Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. Work in prep-
aration includes a paper comparing psychotherapeutic listening to musi-
cal listening, and a book titled Phenomenological Psychoanalysis. Bob
has been a faculty member of West Georgia College since 1970, and he
held a joint faculty appointment as clinical supervisor and graduate
faculty member at the University of Regina from 1975-1976. He teaches
courses on psychoanalytic thought and practice, phen-omenological
psychology, and clinical practice. The books he listed as most important
to the development of his own thought include: The Interpretation of
Dreams (Sigmund Freud), Psychology as a Human Science (Amedeo
Giorgi), Schizoid Phenomena: Object relations and the Self (Harry Gun-
trip), The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenol-
ogy (Edmund Husserl), Collected Works (Carl Jung), The restoration of
the Self (Heinz Kohut), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas
Kuhn), The Politics of Experience (R. D. Laing), History and Class
Consciousness (George Lukacs), Existence (Rollo May), Phenomeno-
logy of Perception (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), Collected Papers on
Schizophrenia and Related Topics (Harold Searles), The Idea ofDialogal
Phenomenology (Stephen Strasser), Divided Existence and Complex
Society (J. H. van den Berg), and The Quest for Identity (Alan Wheelis).

DONALD C. MEDEIROS received his B.A. from the University
of Santa Clara in 1965 and his doctoral training in a behavior modifica-
tion oriented program at Arizona State University. Early on, however,

174 The Graduate Psychology Program

he showed evidence of a natural interest in understanding the ex-
perience of others. He was noticed eating the standard pellets fed to
laboratory rats and pigeons, seeking to understand what it was like for
these animals when they were reinforced. Upon graduation, he served
four years as a clinical psychologist in the U.S. Army, directing children's
treatment services at various Army medical facilities. Again, his curiosity
about what it was like for his clients in play therapy led him to spend
numerous hours on the floor of the play therapy room, trying out paints,
crayons and toys. After military service, Don worked for two years as
Director of Children's Services for the San Luis Valley Comprehensive
Community Mental Health Center. In 1976 he began teaching at the
University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. It was here that he first
became acquainted with the work of Maslow, Rogers, and Rollo May,
which led him to further study of phenomenologically oriented psycho-
logists. Don arrived at West Georgia College in 1981 and began working
in the area of sport psychology, assisting with the women's basketball
program. This has evolved to the point that he now coaches the men's
and women's cross country teams, as well as the nationally ranked
women's tennis team (for which he was named the Gulf South Con-
ference "Coach of the Year"). His hobbies include listening to and
playing country, bluegrass and blues music. He also enjoys cooking,
although not quite as much as eating. Don has co-authored three books
Children under Stress, Beyond Burnout, and Self Actualization: Theory,
Research and Practice, as well as numerous articles, including, most
recently "The Experiential Method." The books Don listed as most
important to the development of his own thought include: Theory and
Methodology of Training (Tudor O. Bompa), Training Distance Runners
(Peter Coe and George Martin), Disclosing Man to Himself (Sidney
Jourard), The Ultimate Athlete (George Leonard), Personality and
Motivation (Abraham Maslow), The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
(Abraham Maslow), Fighting to Win (David Rogers), Beyond Freedom
and Dignity (B. F. Skinner), Existential-Phenomenological Alternatives
for Psychology (Ron Valle and Mark King), and Up from Eden (Ken
Wilber).

RAYMOND MOODY was born in Porterdale, Georgia in 1944. He
studied at the University of Virginia, where he received a B.A. with
Honors in 1966, an M.A. in 1967, and a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1969.
After serving as a philosophy professor at East Carolina University from
1969 to 1972, Raymond entered the Medical College of Georgia, and
received his M.D. degree in 1976. He served a residency in psychiatry
at the University of Virginia Medical Center from 1980 to 1983. Next,
he was staff forensic psychiatrist at Central State Hospital in Georgia
from 1984-1986. Since 1988, Raymond has been an associate professor

Christopher M. Aanstoos 1 75

of psychology at West Georgia College. Raymond's chief teaching and
research interest is altered states of consciousness. He is the author of
three books on near death experiences, Life After Life (Bantam, 1976),
Reflections on Life After Life (Bantam, 1977) and The Light Beyond
(Bantam, 1988). He has also contributed numerous articles to medical
journals and a book on the medical aspects of laughter and humor. The
books which Raymond listed as having most influenced his life and
thinking include: The Comedies (Aristophanes), the Donald Duck and
Uncle Scrooge comics of the 1940's, '50's and '60's (Carl Barks), Dan-
delion Wine and Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury), Across the Space
Frontier (Wernher von Braun), An Essay on Man (Ernst Cassirer),
When Prophecy Fails (Leon Festinger), Collected Works (Sigmund
Freud), "Concerning formally undecidable propositions of Principia
Mathematica and related systems" (Kurt Godel), The History
(Herodotus), The Principles of Psychology and Varieties of Religious
Experience (William James), Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the'
Madness of Crowds (Charles MacKay), Plato's Dialogues (especially
Apology, Phaedo and The Republic), and Philosophical Investigations
(Ludwig Wittgenstein).

ROBIN POWERS received her B.A. from Drew University with a
major in psychology and a minor in religion, and her M.A. in general
experimental psychology at Hollins College. Next, at the University of
Missouri-Columbia, Robin spent the first year and a half of her doctoral
program studying physiological psychology, and then completed her
Ph.D. in counseling psychology. After doing full-time therapy and
training with part-time teaching for seven years at the University of
Oklahoma, she came back east to Pembroke State University to do
full-time teaching and part-time therapy a combination she continues
at West Georgia College, where she has been an assistant professor
since 1988. Robin's interests are broad ranging and include the psychol-
ogy of women, women's spirituality (which includes deep ecology),
psychoneuroimmunology, and transpersonal psychology. Her work is
informed by her lifelong desire to understand our experience of the
world and our relationship with all parts of the world combined with our
experience of the spirit that infuses us. Robin is active in many profes-
sional organizations, including the American Psychological Association,
the American College Personnel Association, the Personality Assess-
ment System Foundation and the Association for Transpersonal Psy-
chology. She currently is the associate editor for the Transpersonal
Psychology Interest Group Newsletter and is on the editorial board of
the Personality Assessment System Foundation Journal. Some of the
books, plays and poetry important in the development of her current
thinking include: Joan of Lorraine (Maxwell Anderson), On Method

176 The Graduate Psychology Program

(David Bakan), The Stream of Behavior (Roger Barker), almost all of
Bruno Bettelheim's books, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Joseph
Campbell), Changingofthe Gods (Naomi Goldenberg), Schizoid Pheno-
mena, Object Relations and the Self (Harry Guntrip), The Aquarian
Conspiracy (Marilyn Ferguson), The Art of Growing (Robert Nixon),
Equus (Peter Shaffer), Boundaries of the Soul (June Singer), Dreaming
the Dark (Starhawk), and the poetry of Yeats and Eliot among others.

KAISA PUHAKKA came to the United States in 1965, fresh from
high school in her native Finland. She intended to study psychology, but
fell in love with philosophy and Eastern thought. Abandoning her
original plan to return to Finland with a B. A. in psychology, Kaisa stayed
on for an M. A in philosophy, another in psychology, and eventually a
Ph.D. in experimental psychology, all from the University of Toledo.
Unable to make her intellectual and spiritual home within the narrow
confines of experimental psychology, Kaisa later obtained a postdoc-
toral diploma in clinical psychology from the Institute of Advanced
Psychological Studies at Adelphi University in New York. For a number
of years after that, she worked in private practice as a licensed clinical
psychologist, doing psychotherapy and forensic consultation. But she
continued her scholarly research in Eastern and comparative philo-
sophy and psychology, phenomenology, and transpersonal psychology,
and has published numerous articles and a book in these areas. Kaisa is
an active contributor to the conferences and publications of the Human
Science Research Association, the Association for Humanistic Psychol-
ogy, and the American Psychological Association, including serving as
a member of the editorial board of the journal The Humanistic Psycho-
logist This year, she is also a founding editor of a new international
journal dedicated to qualitative studies of religious experience, the
Journal of the Psychology of Religion. Kaisa has taught philosophy,
psychology, and religion at Mary Washington College, the University of
Helsinki (Finland), the Medical College of Ohio, Adelphi University,
and the New York Institute of Technology. Since 1990, she has been an
assistant professor of psychology at West Georgia College. Her research
interests center upon human experience and knowing in the context of
religious and spiritual quest as well as other aspirations for wellbeing
and transcendence. These interests are reflected in her courses in
Buddhism, Hinduism, Self as Spirit, Personality Disorders, Psychotic
Styles, and Psychotherapy. The books Kaisa listed as most important to
the development of her own thought include: Understanding Schizo-
phrenia (Silvano Arieti), The Vedanta Sutras ofBadarayana with the
Commentary of Sankara (Badarayana), Psycho-analytic Studies of the
Personality (W. R. D. Fairbairn), Formal and Transcendental Logic
(Edmund Husserl), Varieties of Religious Experience (William James),

Christopher M. Aanstoos 177

Critique of Pure Reason (Immanuel Kant), Conceptual Thinking: A
Logical Enquiry (Stephan Koraer), Commentaries on Living (J. Krish-
namurti), The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness
(R. D. Laing), The Philosophy of Consciousness without and Object
(Franklin Merrell- Wolff), The Meeting of East and West (F. S. C.
Northrup), Nagarjuna's Philosophy as Presented in the Mama-Praj-
naparamita-Sastra (K Venkata Ramanan), Time, Space, and Know-
ledge (Tarthang Tulku), and Through Pediatrics to Psycho-Analysis (D.
W. Winnicott).

DONADRIAN L. RICE received his B.A. in psychology from Wof-
ford College, M.A. in clinical psychology from Western Carolina
University, and Ph.D. in psychology from Saybrook Institute. Prior to
coming to West Georgia College in 1978, Don taught at Auburn Univer-
sity and worked as a therapist in mental health in Lee County Alabama.
He also was a laboratory assistant to Stanley Krippner at the
Maimonides Medical Center Dream Laboratory in Brooklyn, New
York. During the summer of 1978, Don had the experience of being
with R. D. Laing and his colleagues at the Philadelphia Association in
London. His Ph.D. dissertation, entitled An Exposition of Existential-
Phenomenology as a Grounding for Humanistic Psychology with Applica-
tion of the Dialectical Method to Psychotherapy, was an attempt to apply
an aspect of Laing's thinking and approach to an understanding of
non-psychotic experience and behavior. Currently Don is an associate
professor of psychology, teaching a variety of courses including Psychol-
ogy of Dreams, Clinical Hypnosis, Psychology of the Body, Psychology
of Communication, and Transpersonal Psychology. He is the editor of
the Transpersonal Psychology Interest Group Newsletter, and co-editor
(with Peter Columbus) of the book Psychology of the Martial Arts. He
is a member of the American Psychological Association, the American
Society of Clinical Hypnosis, the American Association of Counseling
and Development, and the Florida Society of Clinical Hypnosis. Don
holds the rank of black belt in the World Taekwondo Federation Chang
Moo Kwan style, and brown belt in the Japanese martial art of Aikido.
Don is a licensed psychotherapist and maintains a limited private prac-
tice and consulting business. The books Don listed as most important
to the development of his own thought include: Steps to an Ecology of
Mind (Gregory Bateson), A Separate Reality (Carlos Castaneda), The
Leaves of Spring (A. Esterson), The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis
(Otto Fenichel), Psychology as a Human Science: A Phenomenologically
Based Approach (Amedeo Giorgi), The Neurotic Personality of our Time
(Karen Horney), Cartesian Meditations (Edmund Husserl), The Paris
Lectures (Edmund Husserl), Think on these Things (J. Krishnamurti),
Self and Others (R. D. Laing), Sanity, Madness and the Family (R. D.

778 The Graduate Psychology Program

Laing and A. Esterson), Phenomenology of Perception (Maurice Mer-
leau-Ponty), Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological
Ontology (Jean-Paul Sartre), Psychology East and West (Alan Watts),
and The Spectrum of Consciousness (Ken Wilber).

ANNE C. RICHARDS was bora in 1943 in the Boonton, New
Jersey area. She earned a B.A. degree in psychology from Brandeis
University in 1965, a Master of Science in Teaching (M.S.T.) degree
from the University of Chicago in 1966, and an Ed.D. in Psychological
Foundations of Education from the University of Florida in 1971. In the
course of her academic work, Anne has had the good fortune to study
with such contributors to the development of humanistic psychology as
Arthur W. Combs, Franz Epting, Sidney Jourard, James B. Klee, Ted
Landsman and Abraham Maslow. For the past sixteen years Anne has
been teaching at West Georgia College, where she is currently a profes-
sor of psychology. She has primarily taught courses in Personal Rela-
tionships and in Growth and Development, along with a required
seminar designed to be a culminating experience in the undergraduate
program for students majoring in psychology. Anne's broad range of
interests in the field of psychology is reflected in her professional
publications, which include such topics as "Humanistic Perspectives on
Adequate and Artificial Research," "Marriage Vows to Grow On,"
"Goals of Educational Psychology in Teacher Education," "Evaluation
in a Humanistic Classroom," "Overcoming Jealousy," and "The Primary
Goals of Helping: Some Contributions of Abraham H. Maslow." She
and her husband, Fred Richards, worked with Arthur W. Combs on the
revision of Perceptual Psychology: A Humanistic Approach to the Study
of Persons. This book describes a theory for understanding persons that
highlights the relationship between an individual's experience and his
or her behavior. Anne is presently engaged in several writing projects
related to her teaching at West Georgia. She is also interested in issues
at the interface of psychology and law as well as exploring the relation-
ship between Perceptual Psychology and Buddhist or Native American
perspectives. The books Anne listed as most important to the develop-
ment of her own thought include: The Process of Education (Jerome
Bruner), Humanistic Psychology and the Research Tradition (Irvin
Child), Individual Behavior (Arthur Combs and Donald Snygg), .Frame
Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Erving Goffman),
Encounters with the Self (Don Hamacheck), Radical Man (Charles
Hampden-Turner), Language in Thought and Action (S. I. Hayakawa),
Intelligence and Experience (J. McVicker Hunt), Black Psychology
(Reginald J ones), An Application of Psychoanalysis to Education (Rich-
ard Jones), The Transparent Self (Sidney Jourard), A Theory of Per-
sonality (George Kelly), Elements of Psychology (David Krech and

Christopher M. Aanstoos 179

Richard Crutchfield), Motivation and Personality (Abraham Maslow),
Artifact in Behavioral Research (Robert Rosenthal and Ralph Rosnow).

The Curriculum

At present, the only graduate degree offered by the Psychology
Department is the Master of Arts degree. West Georgia College has
recently petitioned for a change to university status which, if approved,
would allow the department to develop a prospective doctoral program.
At this time it is impossible to know whether or when such a change may
occur. The M. A. degree in psychology can be earned by either of two
options. Students may take either twelve five-credit courses, or else they
may take eight courses and write a Master's thesis. In either case, the
only required courses are two quarters of Human Growth and Potential
In addition, students must demonstrate or earn proficiency in a foreign
language, or the understanding of a foreign culture. Beyond these
requirements, they are encouraged to design their own program, best
suited to their own individual interests, from a wide range of courses,
practica, and independent study options.

The curriculum offered by the department consists of two types of
courses. The first are those included in the college's graduate catalog.
These are permanent courses offered on a repeating basis. The titles of
all these courses are given in the first list below. Most of these are taught
by psychology department faculty, though a few are cross-listed with
other departments and also taught by faculty from those departments
(specifically the Sociology, Philosophy, English, and Counseling &
Educational Psychology departments). In addition to its regular courses,
however, the department also offers several special Horizons Seminars
each year. These are nonrepeating courses that examine a special topic
at the forward edge of some development of particular interest to
faculty and students. In the second section below are the titles of those
special topics courses that have been offered in the past six years.

Permanent Courses Included in the Catalog

Quantitative Perspectives Psychology of Thinking

History & Development of Psych Psychology of Dreams

Phenom. of Will, Choice, Belief Psychology of Myth and Symbol

Group Dynamics Phenomenology of the Unconscious

Holistic Psychology: East & West Psychology of Women

Tests and Measurements Psychology of Love

Adv Organizational Development Parapsychology

Research Explorations Phenomenology

Behavior Modification Introduction to Addictionology

180

The Graduate Psychology Program

Explorations into Creativity
Selected Topics in Abnormal Psy
Psychology of the Body
Seminar in Phenomenological Psy
Psych as a Human Science
Psychology of Community
Transactional Analysis
Neurotic Styles
Psychotic Styles
Addiction and Families
Advanced Philosophical Psych
Advanced Experiential I, II, III
Introduction to Human Services
Seminar in Madness
Hypnosis

Theoret. Individual Psychotherapy
Phenomenology of Social Existence
Principles of Marital Therapy
Psychological Appraisal
Practicum

Psychotherapy and Counseling
Psychol Projective Assessment
Directed Reading in Psychology

Personality and Motivation

Values, Meaning, and the Individual

Practicum: Exper. in Human Services

Seminar in Literature and Psychology

Human Growth and Potential I, II, III

Gestalt

Advanced Parapsychology

Personality Disorders

Approaches to Helping Addicts

Psychological Approach to History

Advanced Existentialism

Colloquium

Seminar in Human Services

The Clinical Interview

Psychology of Human Communication

Principles of Family Therapy

Pathology of Childhood/Adolescence

Theory/Practice of Clinical Assessment

Counseling Methods

Group Counseling

Advanced Practicum: Human Services

Independent Project

Thesis

Recently Offered Special Topics Courses

Self and Spirit
Psychology and Law
Applied Intelligence
Transpersonal Psychology
Psychology of Community
Phen. of Transformative Dreams
Unusual Psychological Disorders
Psychology of Meditation
Psychology of Carl Jung
Clinical Parapsychology
Phenomenology of Spirituality
Lacan and Psychoanalysis
Psychology of Belief
Seminar in Freud
Body Therapies
Daseinsanalysis
Perceptual Psychology
Parapsychology and the Self
Sports Psychology
Zen and Psychology
Violence and the Individual
Memory and the Body

Phenomenology of Consciousness

Dispute Resolution

Psychology of Humor

Buddhism

Gender and Sexuality

Psychology of Murder

Women's Spirituality

Love and Transformation

Phenomenology of Development

Seminar in Self Psychology

Phenomenology of Disasters

Psychology of Men

Applied Human Science

Thinking in Chess

Psychology of Listening

Hermeneutics

Ricoeur and Freud

Psychology of Martial Arts

Psychology of Strange Phenomena

Personal Mythology

Intimacy

Psychology of Religion

Christopher M. Aanstoos 18 1

Departmental Resources

As a consequence of the Psychology Department's prominent role
in the development of humanistic psychology, it has acquired a number
of unique academic resources. Among these are special library holdings
of private collections relevant to humanistic psychology that were
donated to West Georgia College. These include: the Hooks Collection
of books on parapsychology, spirituality and metaphysics; the Jourard
Collection, containing the personal library and the published and un-
published papers of the late Sidney Jourard; and the Weisskopf-Joelson
Collection, containing the papers and books of the late Edith
Weisskopf-Joelson.

Beyond such valued physical resources, the department has also
been graced by visits from a wide range of eminent scholars, who have
presented their work at our departmental colloquium. In recent years,
these visiting lecturers have included: Eggert Peterson (University of
Aarhus, Denmark); Richard Asarian (Ielase Institute, Pittsburgh);
Roger Brooke (Rhodes University, South Africa); Stanley Krippner,
(Saybrook Institute, San Francisco); Clark Moustakas (Center for
Humanistic Studies, Detroit); Steinar Kvale (Aarhus University, Den-
mark); Amedeo Giorgi (Duquesne University, Pittsburgh); Robert
Hutterer (University of Vienna, Austria); Maurice Friedman (San
Diego State University, San Diego); and Ulric Neisser (Emory Univer-
sity, Atlanta). Also, our own alumni who have become renown in their
fields often offer visiting lectures. These have included Cathy Bennett,
who pioneered a new means of jury selection procedures based on
principles of person-centered interviewing, and Daryl Conner, whose
work in organizational development has successfully aimed at humanis-
tically based organizational transformation. Additionally, the depart-
ment has recently established the Jim Klee Forum, in honor of Professor
Emeritus Jim Klee, who retired in 1987 after teaching for two decades
in our department. This forum is designed to bring outstanding speakers
to West Georgia College. Huston Smith's appearance in April 1991
inaugurated the series. Stanislav Grof is scheduled to appear in Septem-
ber 1991. Such visits not only enhance the intellectual richness of the
department, they likewise provide our guests with a taste of that unique
ambiance. Roger Brooke, who visited in April 1991, subsequently wrote
to us that "you seem to have been successful in creating an area of play,
feeling, imagination and thought such as I have not encountered or
frankly even imagined anywhere."

182 The Graduate Psychology Program

Yet another departmental resource is its close ties with the major
organizations relevant to humanistic psychology. Many of our faculty
have served in leadership roles in these Organizations. Examples include
the department's connections with the Division of Humanistic Psychol-
ogy of the American Psychological Association. Mike Arons is a past
president of that division, a member of its executive committee, and the
editor of its directory on humanistic and transpersonal graduate
programs. Anne Richards is a past program chair, and Chris Aanstoos
is the current editor of its journal The Humanistic Psychologist, as well
as a member of its executive committee. As for the Association for
Humanistic Psychology, Mike has been a member of its executive
committee, and Mike and Chris both serve of the board of editors of its
journal, the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Concerning the Human
Science Research Association, the department hosted its 1984 annual
meeting at West Georgia College, with Chris serving as program chair,
Mike as conference coordinator, and Bob Masek as a member of the
program committee. Bob has also been the editor of its newsletter.
Faculty have also been central to the Association for Humanistic Educa-
tion. Indeed, it had its origins at West Georgia College, where it was
founded in 1976 and where many of its early meetings were held. Mike
has served as a past president, Don Medeiros as past editor of its
newsletter Celebrations, Anne as past executive officer and program
co-chair of its 1985 meeting, held at West Georgia College. Tlie Sym-
posium for Qualitative Research in Psychology, a mostly European
group, also has been influenced by faculty from West Georgia. Chris
served as program chair of its 1987 meeting (in Perugia, Italy) and both
Mike and Chris have contributed chapters to its books. Don Rice is the
editor of the newsletter of the Transpersonal Psychology Interest
Group, and Robin Powers is its associate editor. The Depth
Phenomenology Circle has also benefitted from involvement by our
faculty. Bob hosted its 1986 meeting.

The Students

Over one thousand students have earned their M. A degrees from
the West Georgia program since its inception in 1967. They have come
from every state in the United States, as well as from many other
countries, such as France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden,
England, Wales, Ireland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Brazil, Columbia, Peru,
Barbados, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Israel, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan,
India, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Guam, Mexico, and Canada.

Christopher M. Aanstoos 183

They have brought with them a range of talents too diverse to sum-
marize here, and likewise carved out for themselves many different
paths after leaving West Georgia. They have enriched our community
in countless ways, and any overview of the program should include their
perspective as well. The next section consists of brief descriptions by
twenty alumni about their experience of graduate study at West Geor-
gia. They were selected to cover all phases of the program's history, and
individually asked to respond in writing to one open-ended, nondirec-
tive question: simply to recount (in a page) what was significant of their
time here. Every description that was submitted is included below, in
the author's own words.

Following these narrations, the final section offers a glimpse of a
different sort of profile of student interests. It provides a list of the titles
of all completed M.A. theses. As part of their studies, many students
wrote Master's theses though, as one of two options, theses are not
required.

Alumni Retrospectives

In the Fall of 1969 pursuing a Master's degree at West Georgia
required that one suspend many fundamental American norms and values
and explore new personal and social alternatives. Around forty of us, from
all over North America, converged in rural Georgia to experience a radical
form of education in an environment that partially insulated us from the
forces of conformity. We could not pass ourselves off to the local residents
as eager young college boys and girls working on advanced degrees to could
get a merit step in pay. The graduate students they knew were not studying
Eastern religions, existential phenomenology, ESP, bio-energetics, or
myths, dreams and symbols. The program, by its nature, cast us as envoys
from the social fringe foreign invaders. Privacy was an early casualty
of the West Georgia experience. Our "orientation" session turned into an
all-night encounter group, so there were no strangers to be found on the
first day of classes. The interpersonal openness and honesty were a
profound shock. We were challenged to drop our facades and wrestle with
our identities. Among us there were quiet people and noisy people, passive
people and bossy people, spontaneous people and cautious people,
courageous people and frightened people. Everyone's little idiosyncracies
seemed magnified but, over time, we all learned to be tolerant, and to tone
down some of our most irritating traits for the sake of harmony. Many of
the social barriers that traditionally insulated faculty from students were
obliterated. We did not simply call our teachers by their first names, but

184 The Graduate Psychology Program

we went to their homes, knew their families, shared social lives, and
learned all about their dreams and fears in the many encounter groups
and therapy sessions. Their courage enabled us to in some ways see in
them reflections of our own futures. Issues of freedom and responsibility
permeated our lives. Mike Arons knew that the program he envisioned
wouldn't work if we were all required to take pre-specified courses, and
merely take tests on our accumulated knowledge. We had to adopt a new
outlook on learning. It took a few months, but we gradually learned that
knowledge was a tool for shaping our lives. We were seldom told what to
think, jsut bombarded with alternatives until we discovered visions that
complemented us. Alternate 'final truths' were hard to come by. Those
who wished them were left to ferret them out for themselves. Our classes
were not flashy productions: if we wanted pedagogical fireworks we had
to set them off ourselves. Everyone engaged in a mass conspiracy to
trivialize grades. We took what we wanted or needed, and ignored the rest
Our studies ran twenty-four hours every day. We even formed our own
laboratory, a community of thirty-five people living together in the country.
If one of us developed an interest in a subject like zen meditation, geodesic
domes, gestalt therapy, spelunking or film making he or she would
instigate a movement in its favor. A study group would form, and a new
class would be running. Not for credit or a grade, but who cares. For the
first time in our lives, learning was part of life, not an institutional demand.
Much of what we learned at West Georgia was acquired outside the
classroom. These cumulative experiences transformed us into activists,
people who did things rather than just talked about them. It took more
than a decade, but I eventually came to realize that my time at West
Georgia was the pivotal experience of my life. Every important challenge
I have accepted since then earning my doctorate, choosing to teach,
building a house, recording an album has been a choice for me because
of what I learned with my friends at West Georgia. (Lee Hunter)

"We have always had the tolerant, the pluralists, and sensualists and
life affirmers among us, what Snyder (1969) calls 'outcroppings of the
great Subculture which runs underground through all of history. ' This
Subculture... is in all that is funky and liberating; it's even in Carrollton. "
This passage from the Master's thesis I wrote in 1972-73 in the humanistic
psychology program at West Georgia, brings back for me the flavor of that
place and time. In retrospect I'm sure we didn 't seem totally sane. We were
simultaneously coming unglued and creating rationales for our actions
after all, we had to write about something for "Values, Meaning and the
Individual" and "Frustration, Death and Suicide" two of the courses

Christopher M. Aanstoos 185

on my transcript Forme, and I suspect others, our time in Carrollton was
as much an encounter with the bucolic and pastoral as it was with
therapeutic, philosophical, political, and psychological ideas. We did
experience not only Mike Awns' requisite day of silence at Whooping
Creek, but also creek walking and fish fries. This idyllic was shadowed for
many of us by it being the later years of the Nixon presidency and the last
years of the interminable Vietnam War (some of us were veterans, some
dodgers). We were both escaping and wrestling with some real nightmares.
In all this tumult, fervor and exuberant growth, I remember we were richly
mentored and befriended, watched and worried over by the faculty. Look-
ing back, I feel it was a time of great growth for me intellectually,
psychologically, interpersonally. At no time before or since have I ever
made so many lifelong friends. I don 't agree with everything I thought and
did then. Some of the papers I wrote then make me wince now. Though
hindsight is always clearer, I still like what I wrote then at the conclusion
of my thesis: "If I have seemed in this paper to romanticize the rebellious
and unsavory, it is not without awareness that I am throwing my weight
on one side, but with the purpose of redressing the balance. Human nature
has been badly over-controlled in our culture, and the radical and freak
movements are both specifics for and reactions to this imbalance. The
trickster energies have been denied and projected, or at best sublimated,
too long; now it is time to live them out, to break taboos, but not without
the hope of a higher order, one which will not ignore our human frailty
and the chaos at the heart of the universe... The trickster can never
disappear, for it is implanted in human action as firmly as the polarities
of chaos and order, creation and stagnation, life and death. " (Gus
Kaufman)

In reflecting on my experience at West Georgia College, I feel an
immediate surge of excitement and warmth. I graduated fifteen years ago
and worked for the next three years as a psychologist in a state run
correctional facility. Since then I have been in private practice. Being
sensitive to the insidious deadening effects of institutional thinking which
pervades our culture, my appreciation of the quality and spirit of the West
Georgia Psychology Department deepens every year. It is this quality and
spirit which sets West Georgia apart from the mainstream. I experienced
the quality of the program quite personally. First, I was continually
confronted at the very core of my assumptions about what it means to be
fully human. This came not only from the courses I took, but also out of
relationships with teachers and fellow students who were passionately
engaged in their own questioning. Second, I was challenged to respond

186 The Graduate Psychology Program

with freedom, originality and integrity. The spirit was one of a genuine
community of learning in contrast to the impersonal structure of an
institution. The community, shared by students and faculty alike, was
alive, turned on to learning and one in which I felt respected as a unique
being. Far from other "learning" environments in which I had been bullied
into adapting to conventional thinking at West Georgia I was set free to
explore my own experience of knowing and ground that with intellectual
rigor. It is difficult to convey the essence of the program briefly because,
true to its phenomenological orientation, it is a rich contextual process
into which we as students were invited to immerse ourselves. I remember
twice while taking a course on the phenomenology of the unconscious, the
entire class voted to meet after hours (the teacher on his own time) because
we were so excited about the material and just couldn't get enough! I
remember playful and impassioned discussions which ranged from the
role of pain in spiritual awakening to feminism, to the hidden contradic-
tions of social activism. I remember the challenge, "if you really want to
understand madness, start by knowing yourself. " I remember at the end
of one particular course, "Unconventional Modes of Experience, " our
final exam was to be a group oral exam. So we ordered out pizza and shared
food as well as ideas, not as competitors but as friends. I could speak
endlessly of such experiences. Joseph Campbell defined a "calling" as that
where one's deepest gladness and the world's hunger meet The deepest
gladness was in sharing the pursuit of genuine understanding about the
human condition. Surely, the world hungers for such an understanding.
In my estimation, the West Georgia Psychology Department embodies this
calling. (Leland "Chip" Baggett)

As I recall my attendance in the graduate program during 1976-1977,
I think fondly of the psych department family. Those days were the last
fading vestiges of "hippiedom, " of freedom, of do-your-own-thing and of
searching for "truth. " I had done my time in the regimentation of the
military and an undergraduate degree of behavioral psychology; the psych
department was such a welcome respite. I remember my first colloquium.
The room was crowded with about a hundred students, their mates,
children and pets. The room smelled of incense and garbanzo beans.
Students sprawled on the floor, mothers suckled infants, and Jim Klee
moderated the proceedings from his special chair. The discussion of the
day concerned sexism in the department Open debate ensued with a
heated discussion of feminist issues, prejudice, and injustice. But
throughout it all there was a sense of dialogue, passionate argument, and
a loving respect for ambiguity. There was no sense of unresolvabledijferen-

Christopher M. Aanstoos 187

ces, but rather a sense of loyalty, camaraderie, and community; that here
something special was happening, something almost sacred The day
ended in a celebration of meditation, food, and music. This place was like
no other in the world (at least not that I had been). A place where one
could truly Be. That first colloquium was thematic of my entire experience
in the psych department, and one which I carry with me today. Education
out of the stodgy confines of the classroom, into the meaningfiilness of
experience and self-direction. I prospered in developing my own educa-
tional growth and life path; a very real rite of passage. Today, those
nurtured values still provide the infrastructure of an unfolding life. I am
moved to recall the story of Iron John as told by Robert Bly. For me, the
experiences of graduate school at West Georgia gave me the impetus to
"steal the key from beneath the mother's pillow" in order to leave the castle
to learn to become a wildman in the forest I trust that the department will
endure as a viable life-force. (Phil Mengel)

I came to West Georgia's psychology program in 1976 as a result of
various accidents and impulses, the kind that are chaotic as they are lived
but which, in retrospect, seem laden with wisdom. At the time, I was
mid-20' s and confused about my future in the field of psychology. I had
working experience in "psychology jobs, ' but always felt that "their' ways of
explaining and understanding the human condition were pretty lame. I
found little opportunity for questioning and learning, and was frustrated
by running into the constraints of inadequate theory and assumptions
about what is true for people. I was about to can it (and go to architecture
school) when I wound up in Carrollton, Georgia (of all places) instead.
In my time in the WGC program, I had my first experience in which
academics allowed for curiosity. I found people who had considerable
experience with the very ideas and questions which I had stumbled onto
for myself. I found a atmosphere of chaos, in which all ideas were fair
game (qualification: except the conventional ones), and in which dis-
agreement and 'stretching the boundaries' was encouraged The lack of
imposed structure allowed those who were self-directed to flourish, and
those who weren't to float and maybe flounder. For me, the experience
was both challenging and affirming. I didn 't have to be careful about my
questions, and the truths that I did see were accepted at face value. Every
answer lead to another question. And every question made life curious
and alive. During and after my time in the WGC program, I went out to
do the best psychology work of my life. I 'hit my stride, ' and began to know
what I was about For a while. The last straw came while I worked as
clinical director for a unit within a state hospital in Atlanta. I ran out of

188 The Graduate Psychology Program

gas, couldn 't do it anymore. In reaction, I took a left turn out of psychology
and went into computer science. This was a sheerly pragmatic decision at
the time, but has proven to be a magnificent one. Computer science is a
place where the hard stuff and the soft stuff meet It's a place where
questions about technology and consciousness abound. It's a place where
I'm having an effect These days, I'm on the faculty of Georgia Institute
of Technology's College of Computing and am involved in a educational
reform effort there. I'm happy, and I'm having a blast I'm no longer a
psychologist in my title. But the kind of psychologist I became at West
Georgia allowed me to leave psychology behind and to carry the
psychologist in me everywhere I go. It's a big reason why the stuff we're
doing at Georgia Tech is going to work. It seems that lots of people leave
West Georgia and, by mysterious processes, bounce into exactly the right
place. I'm one of them. The West Georgia psychology thing is one of the
best things I've ever done for myself. My life wouldn 't be what it is without
it (Russell Shackelford)

In 1976 I had the option of attending graduate school in several
places. I went to my mentor and asked for advice. 'You can attend that
school on your list and learn a lot about how to obtain high GRE scores,
or you can go to the next one and learn a great deal about the training of
rats, or you can go to West Georgia College and learn something about
yourself" (thankyou Jerry). Loaded with questions, I set out for a one year
stay in Carrollton. I have been here fourteen years now. There was an air
of academic freedom and permissiveness of style. I was offered an oppor-
tunity to compete with myself and never encouraged to see that I lost
Something was encouraged in this learner-based environment that was
not merely the regurgitation of facts and figures some board or agency
wanted. I was permitted the freedom to discuss the facts, figures, and MY
relationship to the facts and figures as I experienced them (and even learn
from bubbles as they pop! thankyou Pat DeSercey). I saw the faculty
as individuals who all went their separate ways as far as content but were
involved in the process of seeing themselves as being 'on the bus together'
(thankyou Henry). Of these individuals, I once wrote a paper on how I
saw the professors as "nineteen mavericks" who were all left handed
bastards. I believed the school was the largest collection of left handed
bastards I had ever encountered and, being one myself, felt this was the
place to test my mettle. One prof essor I encountered was Jim Klee. I was
stunned at the depth and breadth of material that he was capable of
sharing with his class. I believe that everyone who comes into contact with
this man knows that he is an intellectual powerhouse. But I also learned

Christopher M. Aanstoos 189

how much compassion, empathy and love this great big guy could offer
me. I made a particularly tough personal journey in one of Jim's classes
and, when no one else would meet me eye to eye, there was Jim. He looked
at me with eyes that I experienced as warm, spirit-filled, and compas-
sionate. He said "any time you want to talk about it I will be there " (thank
you Jim). (BiSS Liggm)

They say psychologists and caretakers, in general come from
traumatic childhoods and are, many times, looking to heal themselves
through being a healer. This is true for me. I went to West Georgia College
"looking for myself, " coming from a troubled childhood which was con-
tinuing into adulthood The study of psychology intrigued me and in
humanistic psychology I found the inspiration for my pursuit I was
twenty-three when I arrived at the Psychology Department in 1977. Now,
that seems so young. Then, 1 felt so old and knew everything. The openness
and encouragement to learn that I found there fed my fire and my life
began a never-ending learning process. My education became relevant in
my life for the first time. The words of the writers and the teachers made
sense through the intellect and through the heart This was the difference.
The learning inspired more exploration and humanistic psychology
provided a conceptual framework that always pointed me back to my self
At West Georgia, psychology is about Life; about our individuated Life.
In the common experience of our searches, we students bonded and the
bonds seem to grow stronger over time. This quality of experience is
transforming as the inner balances the outer, and not without struggle.
"Being human" is real The transmission of this felt knowledge occurred
as a result of the love that those who taught us felt in its dissemination. I
am eternally grateful for their commitment Opening the door to learning
about my self through the study and experience of humanistic psychology
has provided me with a foundation for Life that makes sense and feels
good. I have discovered that I am the heart and mind of a humanistic
psychologist No one told me that I was encouraged to become my self
and these are my own discoveries. For that, I thank you, West Georgia
Psychology Department ( Jeannie Lagle)

Prior to arriving at the Master's program in 1979, 1 was in existential
transition, looking for a new womb and a new language. My Bronx
mythology quickly eroded as I began to absorb this new culture of people
and ideas. My most memorable impression is how easy it was to begin
friendships. When I began the "program" it was anything but program-
matic. My appreciation of this grew as I realized the opportunity I had for
directing my own education. It was a challenge to define a path of study

190 The Graduate Psychology Program

that would be relevant I was glad to accept that responsibility rather than
be directed by behavioral objectives. I found my language in phenomenol-
ogy and began research that continues today on the problem of embodi-
ment It was inspiring to be exposed to people studying such diverse issues
in psychology. And it seemed that most students founds mentors or friends
in the faculty with mutual interests. Some of the most exhilarating classes
came out of the "Horizon Seminars" where the edge of new material was
explored I am particularly thankful for the profound experiences I had in
the course titled "The Psychology of Inner Space. " Several students and
faculty designed the course to research the experience of being in a sensory
deprivation tank. The department's acceptance and encouragement of
student ideas has sure led to some adventuresome learning. I take offense
with any who might try to ridicule the rigorousness of the program. I
challenge them to take home an exam in a course on Merleau-Ponty's
Phenomenology of Perception or sit through hours of self -reflection during
an orals exam at Whooping Creek It soon becomes obvious that one gets
out what one puts in. I thank all my professors and fellow students for the
dialogue we encountered by reading and struggling with direct sources from
the literature. What more could we really ask for? I have just reviewed the
autobiographical sketch I wrote as a requirement of admission into the
program. At the time, I had written "I hope to gain new ideas of humanis-
tic/existential viewpoints that will help develop my clinical style as well as
enrich my personal life. " Well, this did occur, but more important were the
seed ideas sown and nurtured during my years in the program that ripened
and now reflect my current perspectives in psychology. I concluded that
autobiographic statement with the remark, "I would imagine there to be
a certain intimacy among members of a humanistic program that would
inspire learning and friendships. " I found this true, and a primary reason
for my having stayed in Carrollton. The changing nature of the psychology
program seems consistent with life itself. (John Lebowitz)

In 1981, 1 drove into Carrollton, Georgia, U-Haul in tow. I had no
place to stay, no friends, had never even been to Georgia. My t-shirt bore
the words "Expect Nothing. " Excellent advice, since with no expectations
there can be no disappointment By the end of the first day I had a place
to stay and numerous friends, from alumni to faculty to the owner of the
U-Haul station. I sought and received excellent advice from faculty mem-
bers as to what courses a newgrad student with an undergraduate degree
in English should take. I did not expect therapy from this program; yet I
grew tremendously from my experience. I did not expect to be relieved of
all my neuroses; yet I became so much more aware of the psychological

Christopher M. Aanstoos 19 1

games I play. I did not expect to become a world-class therapist with
Master's degree in hand; but I learned so much about caring and listening
and removing the judgments I put on others and the world. Where else but
at West Georgia College could I both be schooled in Freudian
Psychoanalysis and Transactional Analysis? My right brain got a work-out
through dream analysis, hypnosis, and creativity exercises. My left brain
got stretched and strained from the dissection of phenomenology readings
and testing procedures. Above all, the cohesive sense of family that was
created made this new place and culture home to me. It's been eight short
years since I graduated and here I stay. I have a farm, a husband, and
three dogs. I also still have my extended family from the West Georgia
College humanistic psychology program. Without expectations I was open
to receive so much. (Wendy Crager)

This is the story that wanted to come forth about the West Georgia
College Psychology Department In 1981, 1 was living in Boston working
three jobs to pay for a trip to Europe, and researching graduate programs
in psychology in my 'spare' time. In true logico-empirical fashion, I sent
away for information from forty schools and diligently read through
mountains of paper. The only thing I was sure of in regards to graduate
school was that I wanted to go somewhere totally new. As I was getting
some information out of the Graduate Programs in Psychology in the
United States book, it fell open to the West Georgia College description.
"Georgia, hmmm, Georgia doesn't even exist" I thought After reading the
description of the program I thought "well, at least I can send off for
information. " I felt good about it Ten days later I was once again in the
middle of a pile of papers. I was feeling discouraged, and my brain was
tired from trying to decide what to do. I stopped for a moment, and knew
there was something in the mailbox I saw the glowing orange brochure
with a spiral mandala on it, and I knew I wanted to go to West Georgia.
During my two years in the program, I had the opportunity to study, write,
and think about the stuff I cared most deeply about: the interconnections
of body, mind and spirit. What a gift! My remembrance of West Georgia
is a jewel in my heart. (Christine Eagen)

From my arrival in 1981, I saw the psychology program at West
Georgia College as a lush island of creativity standing above a sea of icy
reductionism and fragmentation within the general field of psychology. It
is a place where relationships and contexts had the opportunity to shine
forth. A place where body, emotion, and mind danced in unison around
flaming campfires which burned in the deep forest nights. It is a melting
pot where the conservative and the liberal could discuss, disagree, and

792 The Graduate Psychology Program

then toast to life over a cold beer. It is a place where faculty were also
mentors and friends as well; willing to spend time, be available, and to
guide us into new spaces when we were ready to take a jump. The program
used structure as a flexible container for the spirit to explore. A program
in which knowledge gained by an individual could be used to empower the
community soul; in which self trust could grow, old friends meet, new
comers could find comfort. It was an atmosphere where European
philosophy engaged western psychology; where art and science informed
each other, and where heart met mind. It was as one student stated so
succinctly: theyin and theyang the tao and the chi, the whole nine yards.
(Howie Whitehouse)

I came to West Georgia College's Master's program in psychology in
1982, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Northwestern University.
While my studies at Northwestern concentrated on experimental psychol-
ogy and memory research, when it came time to choose what to do next,
I decided to follow my heart and continue my studies in the area to which
I felt called: transpersonal psychology. I learned of the psychology program
at West Georgia in a synchronistic way, decided to attend, and have never
regretted it At West Georgia, I found a wealth of classes that were truly
interesting a wide variety of people and possibilities, and a sense of
community which is difficult to describe. It became and continues to be
an important part of my life. The further I go into, and the more I discover
about the academic world, the more impressed and inspired I am that
there is a place like the program at West Georgia, where there is a true
openness to new ideas and where individuality, creativity, and the ques-
tioning of authority and tradition are not merely allowed, but encouraged.
I am currently completing my Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary program at
Emory University and I feel that the learning and growing I did at West
Georgia intellectually, socially, spiritually have helped me tremen-
dously in my subsequent academic undertakings and in many other areas
in my life. The West Georgia psychology program is constantly changing
with new professors and visiting speakers bringing their areas of expertise,
and new students bringing new ideas and interests, yet the whole always
turns out to be much more than the sum of the parts. It 's not always smooth
sailing and it's not all sweetness and light, but the Master's program is
exciting inspiring innovative, challenging nurturing and much more.
(Wes Webster)

One of the reasons I found the program so special was the overall
atmosphere. It was that the program was personal: I felt very welcome,
very grounded and very at home. People in the program were truly friendly.

Christopher M. Aanstoos 193

It was apparent to me from the start that these people considered each
other "extended" family. I have another distinct memory of one afternoon,
walking and thinking "I am at home, and this is the perfect place for me
to be. "I don t have that land of feeling very often. I knew I had made the
right choice for the type of education I wanted. I had first heard about the
psychology program at WGCfrom a professor I had had at the University
of Northern Colorado, Dr. Don Medeiros. He had left the year before to
teach at WGC. I ran into him in 1982, two days before I was to leave
Colorado to move back home to Hawaii I told him that I had applied to
several "traditional" programs because I didn't know where to find the
kind of material I wanted to study, which was a combination of
phenomenology, clinical psychology and the psychology of women. As it
turned out, WGC is one of the very few programs in the country that
specializes in a phenomenological approach to clinical psychology. Be-
tween Drs. Aanstoos andMasek, I was really able to round out my program
and get more than I could possibly expect I am still amazed at how
perfectly the situation worked out for me in terms of finding a program
that teaches these two disciplines together; definitely not mainstream. But,
then again, that's part of what makes the psychology program so special
I was able to make my program what I wanted it to be, while remaining
rigorous in my education. This was/is very important to me. There seemed
to be a tremendous amount of freedom in the program to follow our
"heart's desire. " We, as students, were not limited by traditional rules
dictating what we must and must-not learn. I found the program special
for several reasons. I could study non-mainstream material in a very
rigorous manner; the professors were genuinely interested in the students;
I could get a good, serious education without sacrificing my integrity; and
I had a chance to meet a lot of very interesting people. The psychology
program at WGC is truly a diverse program: from the student body to the
subject material offered. Because the program is so diverse, people from
all over the world come to study at WGC. It is rarely boring offering not
only a good education but one of maturity, tolerance, acceptance, and
open-mindedness. It was a great experience. It is amazing how it all fits
together; not always perfectly, but it seems to work out I know I would not
have gotten this land of education anywhere else. Even with all of the
program 's faults, lam very grateful I had the opportunity to study at WGC.
It certainly opened my eyes and changed my life. (Katy Garrabrant)

/ began the graduate psychology program at West Georgia in 1983,
though I feel I am only beginning to understand what it is they teach. My
interest in the study of psychology came from a longing to make contact

194 The Graduate Psychology Program

with what it meant to be human. This longing to understand human nature
had been my constant companion for as longaslcan remember. So, when
I went to college, I chose psychology as my field of study. The university I
attended as an undergraduate had the sort of psychology department
sometimes referred to as a '"traditional program." The chairman taught
such classes as "Animal Behavior" and "Statistics" in large lecture halls.
I learned what I could as I tried to memorize what would be on the test,
and I wondered what this had to do with being a human being. When I
came to West Georgia, I had vague notions of terms like humanistic
psychology, transpersonal psychology, and parapsychology. My first class
was with Mike Awns. I remember it well: a student asked how many classes
we were allowed to miss and Mike responded by saying something like "if
there is something else more important to you than coming to class, by all
means you should do it " He was not being sarcastic. I came to see
attendance as an opportunity rather than a requirement, and I learned to
be present in the fullest sense of the word The course was experiential, so
I was a participant rather than exclusively an observer. My next class was
with Jim Klee, who had an amazing ability to discuss seemingly unrelated
concepts and then somehow weave them together with a thread of con-
sciousness, a reminder that at some level nothing is truly separate from
anything else. Jim made translations of esoteric eastern philosophy avail-
able to anyone who was really listening. From phenomenology, I learned
to ask who is inhabiting this body, and living this life, and what is the
experience of being alive. Human science has taught me the centrality of
investigating our subjects experience in order to understand their be-
havior. From parapsychology, I did not learn for certain whether these
phenomena do in fact exist, but to dwell in the ambiguity and embrace the
unknown while cultivating a deeper appreciation for the great mysteries
that need not always be explained away. I have not gotten answers to most
of the questions I brought to West Georgia, but I have learned to ask better
questions. I am aware that these concepts are neither new nor exclusive to
West Georgia. What separates that psychology program from many others
is the faculty: a collection of individuals from diverse perspectives whose
underlying quality is perhaps that they are passionately driven to help their
students explore their professional and personal potential That is not to
say that year after year the department soldiers on in an orderly, cohesive
fashion. One need only attend a faculty meeting or be in the general vicinity
to hear the impassioned arguments as the department struggles to finds its
own direction and purpose. (Larry Schor)

Christopher M. Aanstoos 195

Describing my experience of West GeorgJLa College reminds me of the
tale of the blind men describing an elephant Memories of widely disparate
events come to mind, no one of which accurately portrays the. West
Georgia psychology program. Memories of the closest, most loving
friendships are juxtaposed with those of a class trip to a slaughterhouse.
From memories of performance art creativity projects to sensual massages,
to answering phone calls for ghost busters, to long intellectual discussions
over popcorn memories run the gamut from the bizarre to the sublime.
In trying to make sense of them, the genius of Mike Awns becomes
apparent They are, of course, all parts of the gestalt that is West Georgia's
psychology program. As a graduate student from 1983-1985, I felt that
much of the ordinary day-to-day routine of American society was set aside,
giving students the freedom to participate in a great ongoing experiment:
keeping alive what was good and life afprmingfrom the 1 960 's. The people
of West Georgia 's psychology program stand out vividly in my experience.
Most of us had come to Carrollton as searchers. From that common
ground we melded and clashed and formed various connections. We
challenged and encouraged, provoked and infuriated each other. Learn-
ing was never left in the classroom. We were twenty-four hour a day
students. I often felt as though I were experiencing another childhood in
a nurturing yet independent-oriented environment I sometimes felt an
almost physical sense of growth after some revelatory experience. Educa-
tion felt alive at West Georgia. I felt I had found education in its truest
sense. Exposure to new ideas, alternative perspectives and ways of being
questioning encouraged, ambiguity allowed. West Georgia College
psychology was not career training not even life training. It was the process
of life itself: experience, discovery, love, and growth. (Debbie Powell)

There is no single moment I can pinpoint and say "Oh, this is when
the change occurred" or "this idea has changed the meaning of life for
me. " Yet that is what happened. I entered the program in humanistic
psychology in 1 987 with the intent of improving my employment potential
I was in a state of transition and it was very confusing and painful My
children no longer needed a full-time mother and I no longer needed to
be one. But I really didn 't know what else to be. How do you know what
you want if you have never had an experience that defines what you need?
West Georgia 's program provided the experience that I needed but could
not define. I could not have known at the time that I wanted to be more
authentic in resonating with the context of my existence. I thought the
context of my existence was the problem, not the solution. I had ceased
owning my existence, because I had retired as the subject of that existence.

196 The Graduate Psychology Program

I had shaped the habits of my life according to what I thought others
wanted from me. I had hammered myself into a moldy an object, called
wife-mother. Mike Arons was the first human contact I made at West
Georgia. He had a frustratingly insidious way of opening you to the
possibility that you are more than you thought you were, and responsible
for the way you chose to perceive and handle the events around you. He
never gave you answers, he always left you with questions. His questions
were not the hippy-dippy New Ageism genre; Mike haunted you with
questions like "is truth absolute or relative?" 'is naivete the prerequisite to
experience?" These questions all reflected upon the meaning of human
experience. I began to reconstitute much of my experience in terms of its
significance as a human transaction. I began to see the context of my life
and the relative and absolute meaning others contributed to that context
I cannot tell you how strange it felt The first class I attended is a frozen
moment in my psyche. Mike taught a course called "Human Growth and
Potential " It was devised by the department as the only required course.
I walked into an immense room, filled with exotic people. Mike insisted
that we actually pair off and converse with another person, face to face. I
broke into an almost toxic sweat I hated this request, but felt I had to do
it everybody else was doing it. I didn 't want to talk to some stranger. I
was a stranger. I was strange. Mike was strange. I felt sick I felt sick with
strangeness. What was this human growth and potential? How can you
grow from talking to strangers. I figured the only thing that could make it
worse would be for Mike to make us get up and dance. He did. We never
know how experience will change us until we are somehow changed. Today
I face my students in my own classroom, and the first experience I have
with them is face to face. I force them to talk with one another. At first
they hate it. Then I notice by the third or fourth week of the semester they
enter the room talking with one another. They tell me they have come to
college to improve their employment potential. I hope they find what they
need. Thankyou West Georgia for helping me find the experience I needed
in order to seek what I wanted. (Becky Phrydas)

It happened around my 'orals.' Chris Aanstoos, Mike Arons and Paul
Phillips had graciously agreed to be my committee. Having established a
time when everyone would be available, I followed instructions by entering
this information into Mike 's desk diary. Later, upon seeing Mike one day,
I said "see you Thursday, if not before. "Mike (frowning, puzzled), "what's
happening on Thursday?" Den (smiling) "Urn, my orals. You remember,
we talked about it." Mike (puzzlement changing to consternation),
"Thursday? Nooo, that can't be. I have an all day exam on Thursday. "

Christopher M. Aanstoos 197

Den (smiling, but with increasing strain), "But I wrote it into your diary. "
We checked. I had. Mike, "Then there's a problem, 'cause all these people
in that class, you know, I can't change it" And so there was indeed a
problem. I can discern the humor in it now, but at the time I was miffed,
irritated, hurt This was, after all, my orals the culmination of my
academic course, the moment of reckoning regarding what I had made of
WGC and what it had made of me, since my arrival there in 1987. 1 mean,
what kind of program was this? Apart from the raw difficulty of coordinat-
ing another meeting time, there was the serious problem of being close to
that 'final date' which would determine whether I would graduate then or
three months later. Mike, "well then, how about Saturday morning at my
place ? " The other members of my committee agreed. And so the day came.
It was getting out of my car at Mike 's place that I began to gain a sense of
recognition, a special and unmistakable knowing. Walking down the
driveway leading to Mike's house, I was suddenly present to all the other
times I had walked over that ground. I remembered how my whole family
had come to the Fall party my first quarter, wondering (with some trepida-
tion) what this whole event/community was about And then the party
itself (and all the subsequent celebrations): alumni, teachers, students,
their friends, lovers, children all talking and fooling and munching
sparks leaping up in the dark.. Mike's place, I suddenly realized, was not
simply Mike 's place. It was in some way the manifesting of a center which
was usually invisible. It was from that immaterial point of departure that
Mike's class investigating Time had waded upstream and downstream. It
was there that Chris's class in the Phenomenology of Spirituality had sat
round a fire one night and explored the teachings ofStarhawk and others...
Of course, events in many other 'classroom settings' also gravitated
around that same center, but what I understood "with my lived body' was
that the generosity of the Arons family, and the generosity of the extended
family which comprised the psychology department, had allowed me to
somehow know what I had experienced in a way that was virtually tangible.
When I came into the house, I saw that Mike had laid the table with a
white table cloth, glasses, shining cutlery, and there was the chairperson
himself, sleeves rolled up, toiling over the range, rustling up a breakfast
feast for the celebration. What suddenly moved me was recognition of a
special opportunity our psychology department provided. Although the
date for one 's orals might be forgotten, this made it possible for something
much greater to be remembered. Yes, we might mess up spectacularly, and
certainly this would lead to instances of inefficiency unthinkable in other
places. Yet this very unfinishedness allowed for gestures between persons
which could never happen in other places. Those departments of psycho-

198 The Graduate Psychology Program

logy that Junction like the German railway system exact a human cost
which remains unspoken because it is "the way things properly are. ' By
contrast, what our department allowed for was intimately connected to
the timing of personal growth, to the forgiveness which encompasses the
marvelous and exasperating occurrences between persons, to the creativity
which enables one to take a mess and let it become something of wonder.
As to the orals itself, I remember only a few key moments. Many of the
questions put to me were surprisingly probing. At one point I was talking
about the wish that moves us, that vector of desire which (I hold) has its
fulfillment only in the divine. "But, "Paul interrupted, "what doyou mean
by God?" "Well, "I responded (not having the vaguest idea of what I was
about to say next), "here are four faces of God at this table. " For a second,
we just looked at each other and, it seemed, we saw. Then, someone
nodded, someone laughed, someone whistled soundlessly... and the con-
versation took another tack. I want to suggest this: whatever immanence-
in-transcendence we may have known in that moment was made possible
by the whole web of interactions which comprise the psychology depart-
ment at West Georgia. And if there are holes in that web (by common
definition of what passes for efficiency), then these holes make possible
the emergence of an unusual fullness which otherwise would have no way
of being re-membered. (Denis Raphaely)

While an undergraduate studying philosophy, I retained my interest
in ideas, but became increasingly more drawn to understanding ex-
perience, mainly from a personal perspective. I was fascinated with
dreams, parapsychology, consciousness. And I had a desire to teach and
write. I searched for various graduate programs where I could cultivate
these pursuits, but had little luck. One afternoon, one of my philosophy
professors called me into his office. Much to my surprise, he told me about
this "strange" program he thought would interest me because I was so
"strange. "A few months later I was at West Georgia, living in one of Jim
Thomas 's infamous cabins and taking classes. I met so many new people
and established solid relationships with them. After my first quarter, Fall
1988, 1 worked for awhile for financial hardship reasons and, upon leaving
the area thought I would not return. During the year I was absent from the
program, I dreamed of it as well as of several of the people I met, and
finally I returned. I continued learning living understanding and being
for the next seven quarters, until I graduated. I could have graduated
sooner, but I did not want to leave! Sometimes I feel as if I could stay
around here forever, as I love these people so much, but there comes a
time when one has to move on. It is difficult to describe how I feel about

Christopher M. Aanstoos 199

the MA. program, the students, and the faculty. Plato's Allegory of the
Cave serves as an apt metaphor. The prisoners are chained in the cave,
wherein reality for them consists of shadows cast upon the walls of the
cave by their keepers. They are released and led out of the cave into
"reality" viewing the sun and other things of nature for the first time. I
feel as though my experience in this "strange" place was similar, in that I
left a reality I had lived and was led, by classes, faculty, and friends, into
another reality a reality in which I felt I was experiencing warm sunlight
for the first time. A reality in which I stood in awe of the world around me.
A reality which was always therefor me, only I had to accept being free to
go with the possibilities that awaited me. Now lam embarking on another
adventure. I am beginning a Ph.D. program in the Humanities. I leave
behind this reality of warm, nurturing growth, and walk alone into the
forest But I carry with me the provisions I need to sustain me in my new
life. From being here, I have found courage and strength. The psychology
department is an engagingplace, a place inhabited by heroes and heroines,
an immortal place where life and death are opposite sides of the same
coin. (Niles Reddick)

Do you believe in fairy tales? Are you sure?... Well this little story
definitely involves one. It concerns a little boy. Like many children, his life
centered in a family situation over which he had no control His brothers
and sisterwere great company while growing up in their rural setting. Living
in the swampy area of Louisiana offered many opportunities to explore
the rich wilderness life of his domain. Wonderful treks helped develop a
sense of belonging to the earth and the creatures who lived there. Most
everything seemed to be where it should be and how it should be; but
somehow, something was wrong. At about the age of six, he began to look
around and know that the atmosphere he saw in many homes did not
seem to exist in his. There was an element which was thunderous in its
absence. A life long search was undertaken to ascertain why he felt
unworthy and unable to accept and give love. He felt emotionally
castrated. He could see it in himself and in his brothers. He was without
the ability to be emotionally responsible. He knew it, but was still helpless
to perform. After forty-seven years of struggle and failure, our little friend
received a message in meditation. It told him to leave his cultural and
ancestral homeland and go to a place where he had never been before.
Here he would meet people who would help him heal and grow. He went
to this strange land and found an enchanted castle near and enchanted
forest With enchanted people living in the castle. He knocked on the door
and a voice from inside said, "you may enter, however... there is one rule. "

200 The Graduate Psychology Program

The boy waited, trembling at the thought of once again not being worthy.
'You must be willing to face who you really are... and who you can truly
become. "A tear glistened in the corner of his eye. He knew the voice from
his meditation. He knew that he had found his healing place. A gush of
emotion surged up in his being. The healing had begun. Two years later
he had found the person he could truly be. His search was over; his quest
was to begin. The psychology program of West Georgia College (1989-
1991) was the place. (Allen Dufour)

/ am Chandra Nagireddy from India. At the point I came to West
Georgia College, in 1989, 1 was at a very critical phase of my life. Both my
professional work and personal life had lost the sense of purpose and joy.
All I faced was helplessness and pain. There was immense suffering in my
family, both moral and psychological In the midst of this, I had only one
overpowering desire to understand the nature of pain and suffering and
to become a helper and healer. After two years study in the Psychology
Department at West Georgia College, the emptiness has dissolved into a
semblance of purpose. I am one with my desire. Gaining admission into
the Ph.D. program in Marriage and Family Therapy at the University of
Georgia marks the beginning of an adventure. It is not what I learned in
terms of knowledge that is unique in my experience here. Rather, it is the
integrative experience, the philosophical quest and tapping the 'true'
desire. This is not merely a place to acquire an education, but a place of
healing both of one's ignorance and pain. Such an experience is not
facilitated by an education where the teacher knows what is best for the
student or has all 'the truths. ' The immense freedom and nurturance the
teachers provides here can, at times, be hard to live with. Since the program
does not dictate the direction of one's quest, I had to struggle to find one.
It is hard to imagine that a small department as the one here nurturing
passion for so many pioneers in human science. The opening up of the
world of ideas can be bewildering since nobody here asserts what is 'the
truth' or what is 'right. ' One is left with oneself to discover the relevance.
But an education that fails to breed doubt and arouse one's passion is not
for me. This department is for those who will not settle for such an
education. (Chandra Nagireddy)

Christopher M. Aanstoos 20 1

MA. Theses Completed

1968

Entertainment Induced Emotional Arousal

George Marvin Martin
A Study of the Relationships Between Personality Factors, Creativity, and Student
Achievement of Freshmen Enrolled in Composition Courses at West Georgia
College

Michael Timothy McCord
Symbols: An Inquiry into their Origins and Meanings, their Relationship to
Mythology, Art, Dreams, and Humanistic Psychology

Ruth Mary Lacey

1969

An Investigation of Relationships between Associations and Creativity of students
in an Introductory Psychology Course at West Georgia College

Forrest Gordon Hutchings
Personality Characteristics of Prospective Elementary, Secondary, and Special
Education Teachers as Measured by the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

Carole Bomar Royals
Personality Variables Associated with Non-Attendance of Class at the College
Level

Carlton L. Lanier
The Psychological Implications of Audiogenic Seizure of Convulsive vs. Non-Con-
vulsive Hooded Rats during Embryonic Development

Douglas Wayne Lavender

1970

A Cross-Cultural Study of Musical Rhythm Discrimination of White, Afro-
American, and African Children

Jimmy Eugene Jordan
Determination of Factorial Composition of a Purported Measure of Self-Concept
to Determine Feasibility of Further Development and Validation as a Self-Concept
Measure

Charles Edward Kennedy
The Encounter Movement

Edward Francis Rankin
An Inquiry into the Relationship of Labeling to Human Growth and Potential

Jack Clifford Hord
Growth and Prejudice

Michael Calvin Braswell
An Investigation of the Marathon Encounter Experience as a Method for the
Relieving of Loneliness Anxiety

Paul Ellsworth Ganyard
An Investigation of the Relationship between Affective and Cognitive Charac-
teristics of Classroom Teachers Regarding the Exceptional Child

Robert Gregory Litaker

202 The Graduate Psychology Program

The Marathon Encounter An Analysis of the Process of Change

John Alan Rodd
Perceptions of Death in Children

Jack H. Melton
Several Aspects of Hope in the Recovery of a Mentally III Patient

Ben Crowell Stewart
Suicide

Peter Michael Baglin
Toward an Understanding of Homosexuality through Psycho-Analytic Perspec-
tives and Empirical Observations

Randall Taze Thompson
Unconventional Healing Methods Based upon Faith in Carroll County, Georgia

Thomas Coody Bohn

1971

Attitude Change as a Function of Comparative Methods of Inducing Cognitive
Dissonance

Albert Floyd Burkhalter
Coffiitive Hetrodyning

Charles Frederick Forsyth
Creativity and Innocence

Roger Knight Nielson
An Evaluating Survey of the Center, a Tax-Supported Rehabilitation Facility in
Savannah, Georgia

Daniel Hickey Grant
An Experimental Mathematics Psychology Program

Harvey Lee Shapiro
Human Growth as a Function of the Basic Encounter Group Marathon

James John Cotten
Hypnotic Susceptibility and Religious Experience

James Edward DeJaraette
Laughter in the Dark: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Framework of the Human
Dilemma

John Lebus Waller
The Process of a Group Making its own Unconscious

Samuel Martin Dephillippo
The Psychology of Music as Entertainment

Theodore Douglas Downing
Sensitivity Training and Hypnosis: Explorations in Self-Actualization

Gerald Roger Cutting
Teacher-Counselor Caring: Its Effect on the Achievement and Growth ofHigh-
Risk Junior College Students

John Lewis Payne, Jr.
Toward a Psychology of Listening

Herbert Walter McMichael

Christopher M. Aanstoos 203

1972

Blink Rate ofCerebra Palsied, TMR, EMR, and Normal Children as Related to
Intelligence Test Scores

Mary Ann Watson
Coming to Grips with My World: Meaning-Formation as an Intersubjective
Phenomenon

Andrew Earl Short
A Comprehensive Psychological Study of a Preoperative Male Transsexual

Madeleine C. Creaghan
An Example and an Analysis of the Eureka Phenomenon

Joseph Jenkins Cornish
A Group Scale of Hyperempiric Susceptibility: A Preliminary Investigation

William Lee Smith
Individuals' Responses to Affective Massage

Marlene Walker Miller
Man in Time Time in Man

Edward Stanton Ragsdale
Myths of the Aquarian Age

Melvin E. Miller
Psychology and the Science of Creative Intelligence

Dennis Heaton
The Relationship of a Measure of Security and a Measure of Self-Actualization

Oren Brown Starnes
The River: A Symbol for a Way of Living

Steven Monroe Dossey
Self-Referent Expression in Small Groups: a Comparative Study

James Warren Pritchard
On Silence

Stephen Louis Bellafiore
The Tarot and Transformation

Lynn M. Buess

1973

A Clinical Investigation into Mutual Hypnosis as a Means of Expanding Con-
sciousness in an Intimate Male-Female Relationshipp

Francine Segal Lobovits
Cultural Meanings of the Trickster Figure

Gus B. Kaufman
The Effect of Attitude on the Acquisition of a Classically Conditioned Response

Charles Joseph Weis, Jr.
Institutionalization: A Source of frustration Anne Alienation

Deborah Sherre Smith
Introspection: A Precursor of Expanded Consciousness

Michael Emmett Whitt

204 The Graduate Psychology Program

Toward a Theory of Postural Identification: A Comparison of East and West,
Woman and Man through Postures of Sitting and Standing

Seymour Shaye
Treatment Techniques for Heroin Addiction

Brett L. Baxley, Jr.
Unconventional Healing of Group C. Streptococcus Infection in White Mice: A
Comparison of Prayer Effectiveness Under Two Conditions

James A. Baraff
The West Georgia Crisis Center

Jay M . Orlin

1974

Community Residential Facilities for the Mentally Retarded

Alice Sherman Wheeler
Empathy

Mary Balcerak
An Integrated Approach to Meditation

Mark Alan Thurston
Lucid Dreaming as an Evolutionary Process

Gregory Scott Sparrow
Performance on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Suggestibility as a function
of Hypnotic and Hyper-Empiric Induction Techniques

James Randall Sims
Self-Disclosure and Physical Touching: An Inquiry into Relationships Between
Blacks and Whites

George W. Chapman

1975

An Adventure in Consciousness: The Growth of Experiencing

John Randall Potter
The Death of Suicide: The Humor of Morbidity

Jackson Herschel Highley
The Developmental Process of Consciousness in Creativity

Frank Donald Wheeler
Dying Death and Suicide: A Psychological, Poetic and Personal Inquiry

Richard B. Holcombe
EMG Feedback and Relaxation Training as an Ancillary Treatment for Elevated
Intraocular Pressure

Neil Hochman
Institutions of Abnormal Behavior in three Primitive Societies: An Evolutionary
Model

Morgan Ray Crook
An Integrated Cognitive and Affective Approach to Early Childhood and Elemen-
tary Education

George Richard Tyson
A Phenomenology of Marital Interaction

Roy Paul Tressler

Christopher M. Aanstoos 205

Theoretical Analysis of Anxiety and its Relationships to Learning Performance
and Personality
Fahmi Natour

1976

Human Motivation: A Critique of Animal Centrism

Kalim Ur Rahman
In Search of the Lost Chord: A Study of Gemeinschafts-Gefuhl in Human
Psychology

Manfred Mueller
Paranormal Healing: Beginning a Theoretical Bridge from Phenomena to Struc-
tured Understanding

Frank Morgan
Self-Actualization and Religious Experience

Donald Garrett
A Study of the Spiritual Peak Experience and Religious Ecstacy

Steven Mark Weiss

1977

Acceptance: A Different Way of Knowing

Karen Dale
Breath and Integration

Oren Franklin Leblang
The Humanization of the Home

Jan Merle Wood
The Individual's Response to Himself: A Philosophical and Psychological Inquiry
into the Bases of Human and Social Problems

Reta Nell Harper Norton
The Juvenile Justice System: A View from Within

Joseph Edwin Hartman
The Phenomenology of Epilepsy: A Study of the World of the Epileptic

Susan Mary Hart
Police Behavior. A Normal Adjustment to the Environment

Jane Lee
Rainbow Writing: An Ever-Blooming Vision of an Ever-Changing Hue

Mary Beth Scalice
Toward a Critical Psychology of Women: A Contextual Approach to the Origins
of the Feminine

Lucie Gattone

1978

Physical Education and Personality Development

Stephen Walter Byers
A Survey of Southern Baptist Attitudes toward the Role of Women in Church and
Society

Clay Louis Price in

206 The Graduate Psychology Program

1979

The Authentic Individual Or How to Be a Hero: Joseph K. vs. Psyche

Rachel Ann Summerfield
Executive Women: Their Successes and Conflicts

Barbara Gail Autry
Essays on the I Ching

David O. Haverkampf

1980

Glass Beads (The Rebirth of Metaphysics)

Benjamin Terry Williams
A Study of the Social and Intellectual Forces Contributing to the Personality
Formation of Martin Luther King Jr.

Ernst M. Bierkerot
Stress, Illness and Weil-Being

Ronald O. Kirk

1981

Personal Construct Psychology and Creativity

William Vernon Chambers
The Authenticity of Suicide

Joseph E. Schumacher
Therapy and the Creative Process

John H. Stuhrman
Lucid Dreams: Varieties, Evolutionary Origins, and Techniques of Induction

Kenneth William Danis
Divorce Group Counseling: A Handbook for Divorce Support Groups

Edward L. Boye
PSL'A Model for Psychotherapy

Barbara R. Church

1983

The Youth's Perception of Her/His Involvement in Georgia's Juvenile Justice
System

Catherine Ida Loewin Quinlan
Here and Now: Essays in Psychology and Religion

Bruce Linwood Mills
The Effects of a Self-Claimed Psychic Healer on the Root Growth of Com Seeds

Joseph Michael Wallack
Contemporary Theory and Methodology in three Body-Centered Experiential
Psychotherapies

Eric G. Rosen
A Study of the Correspondence of Color Selection andMyers-Briggs Type Indicator
Results

Robert Glenn Allisat

Christopher M. Aanstoos 207

1984

Phenomenological Study of the Psychological Implications of Victimization by
AIDS

Don R. Hughey
Humanistic Psychology as Applied in the Life of the Church

John F. Cox
Restrictive Unrestrictive: An Identification of Self

Gregory C. Gurley
The Experience of Incest: Childhood Victims in Later Life

Ruth B. Skaggs
Adventures in Becoming

Sharon Solfvin

1985

Age as a Relative Factor in Maslow's Concept of Self-Actualization

Harold Restein
Friendship Between Men and Women: A Descriptive Approach

Mefinda Jean Lafferty
Doctors Orders: A Study of Willingness to Change Eating Habits

Delores Morris Bradley
Losing Faith: The Experience of Loneliness

Donald Ray Ingram
The Myth of the Androgyne

Donald Davis
Myth as the Symbolic Language of the Psyche

Vaughn Alan Vowels
The Experience of Transformation through the Alexander Technique

Donna L. King

1986

Transformation: The Alchemy of Addiction
Frank Rice Tiller, III

1987

A Descriptive Exploration of the Imposter Phenomenon

Judith Anne Horton
Technologies: Substitutes for Self-Authority

Jenifer Ann Augur
Phototherapy: Humanistic Helping

Deborah Gray Williams

1988

In and Out of the One-Way Glass: A Phenomenological Study of Recreational
Role-Playing Games
Bonnie Verner

208 The Graduate Psychology Program

An Analysis of Personality Factors and Perceived Resistance to Organization
Change and Development

Thomas Paul Anderson
Using Electromyographic Biofeedback in the Battle Against Alcoholism

Victor R. Gonzales, Jr.
Severe Asthma: The Matrices of Meaning

Marsha V. Hammond

1989

Spiritual Fulfillment: A Psychological Perspective of "Spiritual Fulfillment" in
Human Beings

David M. S. Kimweli
Earth Integration as a Means of Psychotherapy

Mark Robert Pietrzak

1990

The Therapeutic Wilderness Experience

John Stephen Cockerham
The Christ Event as a Paradigm for the Individuating Ego in the Twelve Steps of
Alcoholics Anonymous

Joe N. Culpepper
Inner Resources: The Intuitive You

Wilma Fellows Frederick

1991

On Distinguishing Progression and Retrogression in the Moment of Human
Engagement

Denis Raphaely

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE
STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Volume XXIX

June 1991

STUDIES IN HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

edited by
Christopher M. Aanstoos

The essays in this collection are the work of the faculty of the Psychology
Department of West Georgia College. For the past quarter century, that
department has sustained an innovative graduate program in humanistic
psychology. These essays offer examinations of important current issues
that are the focus of the faculty's teaching and research interests. They
analyze such topics as: the place of creativity in the conceptual founda-
tions of psychology; how the therapist perceives the patient in
psychoanalytic psychotherapy; the essential facets of knowing and how
these can be lost and reclaimed; the psychological dynamics of the
family; the impact of desiring on sexuality and gender; the existential
phenomenology of human embodiment; the pedagogical significance of
sharing secrets; a typology of visionary experiences; the psychosocial
repercussions of ecological disasters; and an experiential approach to
athletic performance. The authors relate their work not only to key
western thinkers, such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Laing and Kohut,
but also to Buddhist traditions as well, in the process demonstrating the
reach and scope of contemporary humanistic psychology. Such studies
are especially timely at this crucial juncture, as humanistic psychology
makes the always difficult shift from the generation of the founders to
those that will carry on that project.